Home is Where the Heart Is
by MyCedarChest
Summary: Desperate acts can sometimes turn into happy endings. Our heroes encounter drama, love, and humor along the way.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was just before 7:00 PM on a quiet Tuesday evening. The TV was tuned to CNN as usual and the CEO of Stark Industries was steadily typing away on her laptop dividing her attention between her email and the TV screen. Suddenly, Pepper looked up from where she was sitting on the living room couch in Tony's mansion at the TV screen in horror. The reporter on screen was reporting a breaking news bulletin at the same time her Blackberry dinged: A text message from SI Public Relations. She couldn't tear her eyes from the TV screen as an Al Qaida video depicted 18 US Marines and 2 civilians both of whom she recognized immediately as SI R &D employees, Jack Jones and Tiberius Watkins, blindfolded, gagged, with their hands held over their heads. Their captors had rifles pointed at them.

Pepper immediately knew what the text message from PR was about. She had known Jones and Watkins for over 10 years and knew their families as well. Her heart sank.

What Pepper didn't notice was a quiet presence directly behind her studying the TV screen intently, his body becoming more tense as the seconds ticked by.

The reporter continued as an audio commentary to the Al Qaida video that inferred a direct translation to the Al Qaida voices on the video. The message was simple: Meet Al Qaida's demands for prisoner releases and troop withdrawals or the captive Americans would die. They promised release of more details of their demands later and the video abruptly ended.

The news reporter screen shot was quickly replaced by the CNN news anchor whose eyes confirmed the seriousness of this hostage situation. After a minute of speaking off camera to the news production crew, the anchor's image was replaced with a stateside reporter who had already cornered some family members of one of the US Marines identified as being held prisoner. The camera zoomed in on the face of a sad little boy about 6 years old with a buzz cut and tears in his eyes. "Someone please help my Daddy!" he cried in desperation, between his sobs of anguish. His mother quickly picked the boy up and carried him away from the camera as the cameraman and reporters tried in vain to catch up to the mother and child. One of the family members physically grabbed the cameraman and prevented him from pursuing the grief stricken pair.

Pepper felt the couch move behind her as Tony's hands came to rest on her shoulders.

"Jarvis" he said quietly, "I want the Mark 7 ready to suit up in 15 minutes."

"Yes, sir" Jarvis replied almost sounding sad. "If I may, sir, without further detailed analysis of this mission, the probability of success of a rescue attempt of this magnitude is less than a 5%."

"A little more helpful information would be appreciated, Jarvis." Tony replied moving away from Pepper.

Pepper bolted up off the couch and quickly put herself between Tony and the stairs to the workshop.

Without words Pepper stopped Tony by placing her hands on his chest on either side of the arc reactor. Their eyes locked. For a second it seemed each one understood what the other one was thinking. Suddenly fear and panic gripped Pepper and her hands grabbed onto his shirt and tried to push him backwards away from the stairs, but she realized that it was like moving a block of granite. Her hands balled up the fabric on his shirt. As Tony stood his ground, his face mournful, and his eyes stinging with unshed tears he knew that this mission could very possibly be a suicide one, but he knew that he was the only person with the resources capable of even attempting such a rescue. He knew he must try not only for Jones and Watkins but also for that little 6 year boy's daddy. He pulled Pepper into his arms and held her as she continued trying to shove him back away from the staircase, away from what she feared would be the pathway to his death.

It had only been two months since the Expo and their first kiss, and their stable-ish relationship had slowly been evolving into a genuine adult relationship (albeit a still unconsummated one) much to the surprise of everyone, including Pepper and Tony. They had started going on real dates out in public, in full view of the press. Tony had even uttered those 3 words to Pepper without the aid of alcohol. Pepper had been shocked, but did reciprocate, much to Tony's delight.

"You can't do this, Tony!" her voice muffled by his chest. "I don't want to lose you again!" She suddenly stopped trying to push him and wrapped her arms around him in a quick bear hug pulling him more tightly into her She knew deep down that Iron Man really was the American's only hope for rescue, but her desperation to keep Tony safe and with her was too strong to give up and let him go easily. She fought back her tears by biting the insides of her cheeks.

Jarvis interrupted the pair by replacing the CNN coverage with a satellite photo of a specific Lat/Lon and continued to drill down to a grainy but recognizable piece of ground looking like the mouth of a cave. "I have a definite ping point for Mr. Jones' transmitter. The depth below natural ground at the ping point is 833 feet. It is of course unknown the distance of the pathway from the entrance of the cave to the location of Mr. Jones' transmitter."

"Good work Jarvis." Tony leaned his head back to Pepper and sighed softly into her hair. She looked up at his face now with curiosity, her eyes still glistening with unfallen tears.

"I have a feeling that this could be the beginning of a plan." Pepper whispered with just a little hope creeping into her soft voice.

Tony grunted a reply and gently moved his arms outward carrying Pepper with them. He was creating a gap between them on purpose, and she made no move to fight him.

"A decided advantage to a direct assault on the cave entrance would be to work under the cover of darkness. The lunar calendar indicates the moon is in its dark phase at this location for the next two days. Calculating the use of Mach 1 speed in stealth mode required to prevent detection of travel, the estimated optimum departure time for Mr. Stark from Malibu would be 7:00 AM PST tomorrow morning. This would provide us with approximately 7 hours of daylight surveillance time before nightfall." Jarvis spoke with a most noticeable increase in both volume, as well as almost an emotion which could almost be described as hopefulness.

"Before they left the States, both Jack and Tiberius had me embed GPS micro chips in the soft tissue of the inner side of one of their arms. They had teasingly told me that their respective wives wanted them to do this in order to keep tabs on them while away from home." Tony explained as he locked eyes with Pepper once more. "But I told them both that they were just too valuable to SI to get lost in the desert while they were looking for a bush to piss on. I think it made them feel a little better knowing that I knew where they were at all times. This chip is similar to the chips we both have. Jarvis probably can't get a read on Tiberius' chip because of some type of shielding. Jack is the practical one of the two. He would try to position himself where the transmitter would be most effective."

"Let's hope their captors don't figure this out." Pepper remarked as she placed her hands gently on Tony's cheeks rubbing her thumbs into his goatee her blue eyes still locked with Tony's bourbon ones. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly trying to calm herself down. "I love you" she said softly.

Tony's hands fell to her hips in a very familiar and comforting fashion. "I love you, too" he replied in a whispered tone as he leaned in to kiss her.

Pepper's hands automatically moved from his cheeks to behind his neck alternating between roughing up and smoothing his thick wavy hair. Their kiss deepened and now involved a slow dance between their tongues, continuing until breathing became a necessity for each of them.

Tony suddenly released his grip on Pepper. "I need to go get something from upstairs. I'll be back FAST."

Pepper shook her head and smiled. Tony was always very spontaneous. But leaving her in the middle of such a kiss was definitely new for him. She wondered what he was going upstairs to get.

Tony literally leaped down the stairs and jogged back over to where Pepper was patiently standing, and stood motionless in front of her with both hands behind his back.

"During the last week that I was held captive in that cave, we worked without sleep for the most part." Tony started. "Once when I fell asleep on the work table, Yinsen woke me up. I was disorientated and groggy and my mind and body were on the verge of just giving up on finishing the suit. I think Yinsen realized just how far down I had fallen both emotionally and physically. He grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me hard and asked me this question intending to inspire me to finish the suit: 'If you only had one night left to you, Stark, and could spend it any way you wanted, how would you spend it?' My mind suddenly cleared enough to actually think about his question. It only took me a few seconds before I had an answer for him. I told him that that night would be my wedding night with you, Pepper. That was the motivation I needed to get the hell out of that cave."

Pepper's eyes grew wide and her posture changed from relaxed to tense as she suddenly understood what Tony was trying to tell her in relation to the desperation of their current situation. She realized that Tony believed that this was to be their last night together. Tears started to well up in her eyes. Tony noticed the change in her posture, and immediately locked eyes with hers, looking at her with such depths of devotion and love that Pepper actually felt her knees go weak.

Tony's hands came around from behind him holding an old, beat up cigar box with the words "Property of Tony Stark" written across it in a child-like scrawl with red crayon. Pepper's eyebrows shot up as she looked at the box and a smile broke out on her face.

"I've been hiding these since two weeks after I hired you as my PA." Tony softly said. "You and Obi were in your office late one day and had gotten into a very heated discussion in which you had defended me to him. Obi hadn't closed your door completely when he walked into your office. Completely by accident, Rhody and I just happened to be walking down the hall to leave and go bar hopping when we heard the loud voices. We overheard most of your conversation with Obi. I had never had anyone since my mom defend me with such passion and determination. You backed Obi completely down. I suddenly felt I had been struck by lightning and I stood there paralyzed with the realization that I was hopelessly in love with you. Rhody shoved me hard, damn near knocking me down and pushed me down the hall to the elevator before Obi could leave your office and find us eavesdropping. Once we got on the elevator, I looked Rhody in the eye and called you my 'Baby Mama'. I remember Rhody grabbing me by the shoulders, giving me a hard shake, and with that drop-dead serious look in his eyes said: 'Tony, YOU need to grow up and be a man instead of a baby if you EVER expect Pepper Potts to have YOUR babies!'" Suddenly, Tony's expression fell slightly and he looked at her with hesitation. "I just hope that I have grown up enough in your eyes now Pepper."

Tony suddenly got down on one knee in front of Pepper and placed the cigar box on the floor. He then pulled out two black boxes and opened one of them. He pulled a ring from the box with his right hand and gently took Pepper's left hand with his own left hand. Pepper quickly sucked in a breath finally understanding what was about to happen.

Tony's eyes had become dark and pleading "Pepper, please let me have this night with you as my wife. Ms. Virginia Potts, would you do me the honor of being my wife!" Then he flashed a quick smile "Oh, and be my Baby Mama too!"

Pepper decided quickly what her answer would be, and suddenly she felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her soul. She felt a glimmer of hope that maybe this mission wasn't a suicidal one anymore. She also realized that she had to be the one to take the positive lead for tonight and tomorrow, as well as for the remainder of the mission, encouraging Tony and herself thru this stressful and dangerous time. "Tony, I would love to be your Baby Mama…AND your wife too!"

Tony wanted to stand up right then and grab Pepper and swing her around the room, but he resisted the urge. With a shaking right hand he placed the engagement ring on the ring finger of Pepper's left hand. It fit perfectly. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief and willed his hand to quit shaking. Pepper turned her left hand to hold his right hand and their eyes met. Suddenly Pepper started giggling. Tony stood up and held both her hands against his chest over the arc reactor.

With a twinkle in his eyes "OK Baby Mama, what's so funny?"

Pepper looked down to the floor "A cigar box? Really? What is the man with the latest and greatest security on the planet doing keeping valuables in a cigar box?"

"It worked for almost 11 years, didn't it?" Tony defended himself as he bent down to gather up both the cigar box and the ring boxes. "Actually, it's a very high tech cigar box."

Pepper narrowed her eyes at him. "I absolutely refuse to ask what makes it so 'high tech'."

Tony quickly tucked the cigar box under his left arm and opened up the ring boxes. It suddenly dawned on Pepper that she hadn't even looked at her engagement ring yet. She tilted her left hand up to take a good look at the ring. It was very elegant, the band a platinum one and the setting being a single large diamond surrounded by smaller diamonds: definitely expensive, but not gaudy.

Tony caught her gaze. "Yeah… Platypus helped me pick out the rings. You know me. I would have gotten you the biggest diamond on the planet, but he talked me out of it." Tony held out the wedding bands to her for inspection.

Pepper nodded her approval and closed both her hands around his, sealing the rings within both their grasps as a sign of acceptance to him. "Now we just need to find someone to marry us tonight." Pepper looked back towards the couch.

"Vegas?" Tony prompted.

Pepper had already made it back to the couch and retrieved her Blackberry. Her fingers were working quickly dialing a number from her contacts list. "I absolutely refuse to be married by Elvis or any of his impersonators."

"Damn" Tony laughed "I was really looking forward to wearing my blue suede shoes at the ceremony too." He carefully placed the two wedding bands side by side in one of the boxes.

"I am sure that you will get over that disappointment once we start our honeymoon." Pepper smiled coyly at him. Her expression immediately changed into a serious one when a low voice answered her call. "Judge Gonzales, this is Pepper Potts. I apologize for the lateness of my call, but I have a huge favor to ask of you" Pepper started as she motioned for Tony to go get cleaned up and changed.

Tony was convinced that everyone in the world owed Pepper at least one favor. She was helpful and generous by nature and people naturally responded to her in kind. Tony smiled at her and headed upstairs placing the empty ring box in his cigar box as he bounded up the stairs taking two steps at a time. He got to his bed room and placed his cigar box once again in the hidden compartment built into the headboard of his bed. 'No security indeed' he mumbled happily to himself. He placed the wedding band box on top of his dresser.

"Judge Gonzales, I really appreciate you doing this for us on such short notice and at such a late hour." Pepper had known the judge and his wife Sophia for almost 8 years from the various fundraising for not-for-profit organizations that they all supported. Judge Gonzales had agreed to perform the wedding ceremony and his wife had agreed to be witness. Pepper had requested that the ceremony remain private and the Judge and his wife agreed to not mention a word of it to anyone. Pepper didn't know how long they could keep this from the public. The Judge agreed to wait to email the paperwork to the county for recording for 14 days.

The ever patient Jarvis had many years of routines and upgrades to temper his interactions with Tony and Pepper. They were the two humans that lived in his "house", so he had lots of exposure to their personalities and emotionality. Reading romance novels and watching talk/reality TV shows had done little but confuse the AI about human behavior in general and Ms. Potts and Mr. Stark's behavior in particular. Jarvis had always liked Ms. Potts and felt she thought more logically than other humans he had interfaced with, especially Mr. Stark. One need only to peruse the many YouTube videos of an inebriated Mr. Stark to confirm this. However, since his return from being held captive in Afghanistan, Jarvis had noted that Mr. Stark had become more self-controlled and logical and seemed to be working very hard to create a better media image of himself. Jarvis surmised that Ms. Potts' change in attitude towards Mr. Stark's advances was the result of these changes in Mr. Stark's personality. Being able to multi-task as a super computer had its advantages: Currently the AI was also working on formulating a battle plan for the rescue mission beginning with site analysis. "Sir, I wish to inform you that my site analysis is complete for the target area. And also sir, I wish to offer my congratulations on your engagement and pending marriage to Ms. Potts."

"Thanks Jarvis." Tony said as he stepped off into the shower. "Make sure you calibrate the Nemesis to disperse over the entire surface area surrounding the cave entrance including the guard stations. At night we may still have clusters of guards in the fringe areas. I want to try to get as many of them down as I can before I need to get into that cave. See if you can locate the generator supplying lights and power in the cave and the power cable routing. I will need to take control of that generator quickly once I'm on the ground. Because of distance limitation on cabling requirements it should be located close to the mouth of the cave. These guys don't have the equipment or skill to drill power duct runs through that rock."

"Yes sir." Jarvis noted.

"Be sure and check the mirror alignments for the Shield trip wire too. I don't want the Shield folks getting suspicious and involved. Too risky for both them and me."

"Already checked and will be double checked just prior to your departure, sir. The Mark 7 will allow for maximum stealth."

"Thanks Jarvis." Tony was scrubbing the last of the dirt and grease from under his fingernails. "And also thanks for the congratulations for me and Pepper too." Tony paused and become somber at the thought. "If our mission isn't a success, and I don't make it back you know what to do, right?"

"Affirmative sir. I will activate protocol Spring Thaw after Ms. Potts, soon to be Mrs. Stark, declares you dead."

"Let's hope you don't have to ever activate it." It suddenly dawned on Tony that Jarvis had just called Pepper 'Mrs. Stark'. Tony was positive he LIKED the sound of that. "I would like nothing more than have about a dozen Stark babies running around the house supplying you with endless opportunities to expound your vast wisdom and knowledge." Tony smiled at the thought and silently prayed he would see it a reality.

"I would thoroughly enjoy hearing the pitter-patter of baby Starks around the mansion, sir. I am sure I also speak for Dummy and Butterfingers." Jarvis countered.

"Pitter-patter? You have been watching way too much daytime TV again haven't you?" Tony laughed as he grabbed a towel to dry off with and his razor from the counter top.

Tony dried off and shaved quickly and moved into his closet. He stopped to remember which business suit Pepper was wearing and picked out one of his best Armani suits that would complement Pepper's outfit. 'Just because we don't get to have a lavish wedding doesn't mean we can't look good together for the civil ceremony' he muttered to himself as he dressed in record time. He grabbed the wedding band box off of the top of the dresser and stuffed the box inside his jacket pocket as he made his way back downstairs.

Pepper looked up at the stairs as Tony came down with a shocked expression. "Did you really just shower, shave and get dressed in less than 15 minutes?"

Waggling his eyebrows suggestively and totally ignoring Pepper's sarcastic comment, "I was motivated. The faster we get married, the faster we get to work on making Stark babies!"

"I have given Jarvis Judge Gonzales' address already. Let's go in my car in order to avoid attention." Tony made a disapproving face and started to sulk. Pepper chuckled and hugged him around the waist. "OK, you can drive then Tony!" A blazing smile suddenly blanketed Tony's face as he grabbed Pepper's bag and fished her car keys out.

"Shall we Madam!" Tony said as he pulled Pepper's right arm around his left elbow, leaned over and planted a soft kiss on her cheek, and then quickly tugged her down the staircase to the garage.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The trip over to Thousand Oaks went quickly. Pepper kept her left hand on Tony's forearm gently massaging it. She enjoyed the feel of his tendons and muscles and wished silently that she and Tony were already back at the mansion and in bed making love. She smiled and shook her head at the thought finding it still hard to believe that this was really happening.

Tony noticed her head shake and quickly glanced at her. "Are you trying to feel me up, Ms Potts, soon to be Mrs. Stark?"

"Of course not, Mr. Stark." She murmured in a low, sultry voice "I just wanted make sure you take it a little easy on my gears."

Tony's eyebrows shot up catching the suggestive tone in her voice, and he felt himself tremble at the thought of making love to Pepper. He was so in love with this woman that he literally ached to be with her. The past two months had been hard on both him and his overworked right hand. He gritted his teeth, mentally tried to tamp down his growing erection, and pressed the accelerator down a little more. Jarvis remarked that the ETA to Judge Gonzales' home was less than 5 minutes now, making Tony smile.

Tony pulled into the Judge's circle driveway on Westbend Road and parked. He turned to look at Pepper and then leaned over towards her so their foreheads touched gently. "I love you." he quietly stated as if this had been known between them for an eternity.

Pepper reached up and gently scratched his goatee. "I love you too." Her eyes lit up and a huge smile broke out on her face. "I believe the Judge is waiting on us."

Tony bolted out of the driver's seat, vaulted and rolled with surprising speed and agility over the hood of Pepper's car landing on his feet and lunging for the passenger side door handle. He opened her door with a flourish bowing deeply to her.

Her eyes betrayed her amusement but she pulled her lips into a straight line pretending disapproval.

"What!" he stammered "Don't tell me THAT wasn't impressive."

"You want to impress me Mr. Stark?" she teased as he looked at her dumbfounded. "Two words….multiple orgasms."

Tony's eyebrows shot up almost off his face and with a deep growl he picked her up in a fireman's carry and headed towards the Judge's front door before she could move away from him.

"Anthony Edward Stark!" she giggled as she swung the briefcase that she was clutching to hit Tony's backside repeatedly as he walked briskly up the sidewalk "Put me down. We certainly don't want the judge to decide not to marry us because of reason of insanity!"

"Guilty as charged Virginia Anne Potts." He responded as he gently set her down in front of the door "I am, without a doubt, totally crazy about you."

Tony rang the door bell and they both started to straighten each other's clothes and hair. As Pepper pushed the one stubborn lock of hair out of his face for the fourth time, an older lady opened the door and smiled at them.

Pepper's eyes lit up when she saw the woman and they both moved towards each other ending with a hug. Tony remembered meeting her one other time at some charity function.

"Sophia" Pepper said as they parted "It's so good to see you."

"Pepper" Sophia began "I was so excited when Victor told me you called. It's been at least six months since we have seen you." She stared at Tony accusingly but then suddenly flashed a bright smile at him. "I can see that you have been pre-occupied with other matters!"

Pepper pulled on Tony's arm and he put out a hand in greeting to Sophia. "Thank you for allowing us to interrupt your family time tonight."

"Victor needs you both to fill out some forms for him in the home office." She said pointing inside and gesturing to the left in a flailing motion.

Tony wrapped his arm around Pepper's waist and ushered her inside the house slowly walking in the direction Sophia had sent them.

Suddenly Judge Gonzales popped his head out of a room and gestured them inside pointing to two chairs. He hugged Pepper quickly and stuck his hand out to Tony in greeting. "Sit down you two and we can get to work on the marriage certificate. This won't take long."

They had just finished up when Sophia stuck her head in the doorway. "The atrium is all ready."

"Oh we certainly did not want you to go to any trouble." Pepper pleaded as Tony pulled her up out of the chair and then held her hand lacing their fingers together as they followed Sophia down the hallway.

They emerged into a high ceiling room featuring a large koi pond and a waterfall which provided the low register yet soothing background rumble in the room. Lush tropical plants surrounded the pond. Floor to ceiling windows complimented the open architecture of the room.

"This reminds me of Maui." Tony remarked turning away from Pepper and looking at the waterfall a memory surging up in his brain.

"Yes, this pond and waterfall are modeled after Makapipi Falls in Maui. We have vacationed in Maui many times over the years and always stop by and look at Makapipi Falls every time we go there." Judge Gonzales told them as he overtook them. He motioned for them to follow them into a small area with two benches that faced one another.

"Now I remember." Tony spoke up gesturing at the waterfall "Makapipi is on Hanna Highway, right? I have dived from the top of this waterfall a couple of times. I was pretty drunk when I did it though and naked too as I recall, but I remember the layout of the falls."

Sophia and Judge Gonzales snapped their heads towards Tony at the same time. "Makapipi Falls is over 60 feet high and has a treacherous landing to stand on, Mr. Stark." Sophia exclaimed. "Even the locals say it is a dangerous falls to dive from."

Pepper squeezed her eyes shut and sighed out loud. "Oh God! Tell me again why it is I agreed to marry you, Tony." She pleaded as he turned to her with a big smile growing on his face.

"Because you are head over heels in love with me, and you want to have my babies!" Tony countered wrapping his arms around her waist from behind as Pepper covered her face in embarrassment.

"Well then, since we all know now why you are getting married, let's get the deed done!" Judge Gonzales moved to stand in front of the two benches with his back towards the falls. "You do have the rings, right?"

Tony reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out the ring box. The Judge motioned for both of them to move towards him and face him as he took the ring box from Tony. "Face each other and join hands."

Pepper took a digital camera out of her briefcase and looked towards Sophia who quickly stepped forward to take the camera from Pepper. "Would you mind taking a few pictures, Sophia?"

"Not at all. I have done this a FEW times and have taken some pretty good pictures of ceremonies here. I know just where to stand." Sophia turned the camera on and started making settings adjustments as she walked around and stood to the left side of Tony and Pepper who had moved to stand before the Judge facing one another with their hands entwined.

"Let's begin" Judge Gonzales softly spoke his voice just rising above the sound of the waterfall. "Anthony Edward Stark and Virginia Anne Potts, you have come before me this evening to ask me to marry you as it is my legal duty within the State of California. I will now confirm your intent to marry by asking each of you a question that you may respond to with the words 'I do' if you agree to do so: Do you Anthony Edward Stark come before me of your own free will with the intent to join in legal matrimony, Virginia Anne Potts?"

"I do." Tony answered a small smile creeping up onto his face.

"And do you Virginia Anne Potts come before me of your own free will with the intent to join in legal matrimony, Anthony Edward Stark?

"I do." Pepper answered quietly, only her eyes betraying her happiness.

"We will now recite the wedding vows. Again, the vows are phrased in the form of a question to you and you may respond with the words 'I do" if you agree to do so: Do you Anthony Edward Stark, take Virginia Anne Potts to be your lawfully wedded wife, your constant friend, your faithful partner, and the love of your life from this day forward, and do you offer your solemn vow to be her faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, in joy as well as in sorrow, to love her unconditionally, to support her in her goals, to always honor and respect her, and to cherish her for as long as you both shall live?"

"I do." Tony answered staring deeply into Pepper's eyes and squeezing her hands, his eyes becoming teary.

"And do you Virginia Anne Potts, take Anthony Edward Stark to be your lawfully wedded husband, your constant friend, your faithful partner, and the love of your life from this day forward, and do you offer your solemn vow to be his faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, in joy as well as in sorrow, to love him unconditionally, to support him in his goals, to always honor and respect him, and to cherish him for as long as you both shall live?"

"I do." Pepper answered never breaking eye contact with Tony, her eyes also misty with tears.

"Now for the rings." Judge Gonzales prompted as he handed Pepper Tony's ring. "Pepper you will place Tony's ring first and repeat the ring vow after me: 'I give you this ring to wear with love and joy as a symbol of our marriage'."

"I give you this ring to wear with love and joy as a symbol of our marriage." Pepper spoke and she gently slipped Tony's ring onto his left hand ring finger.

Judge Gonzales continued: "As this ring has no end, neither shall my love for you."

"As this ring has no end, neither shall my love for you." Pepper finished smiling tearfully at Tony.

Judge Gonzales held out Pepper's ring to Tony. "Tony you will place this ring on Pepper's left hand and repeat the ring vow after me: 'I give you this ring to wear with love and joy as a symbol of our marriage'."

"I give you this ring to wear with love and joy as a symbol of our marriage." Tony quietly said to her as he slipped the ring onto her left hand's ring finger and gently nudged it to rest against her engagement ring.

Judge Gonzales continued: "As this ring has no end, neither shall my love for you."

"As this ring has no end, neither shall my love for you." Tony finished smiling at her now through his own tears.

"And now for the best part!" Judge Gonzales proudly said, trying to lighten the mood. "By the power vested in me by the State of California and by your spoken vows and actions, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Stark! Go ahead and kiss for crying out loud!"

Tony leaned into to Pepper still holding her left hand in both of his hands and kissed her gently. Tony released her hand as the kiss deepened and circled his arms around her ribs into a hug. Pepper's arms went around his neck. After a minute they pulled out of the kiss and gently rested their foreheads together each doing their best to wipe away each other's tears from their faces.

Judge Gonzales pulled out a box of tissues strategically hidden behind a plant. "Why don't you use these instead …they're included free of charge in my wedding packages!" They each took a tissue and dabbed at each other's faces quietly laughing.

Tony walked towards Sophia and took the camera from her and setting it on a rock ledge. "How about a group photo?" he said "Come on you three, move together so I can get this camera aimed in the right direction."

Tony twisted the camera and adjusted the zoom until he was satisfied. Then he pushed the delay button and moved next to Pepper in the space she had left for him. The camera beeped and then flashed. Pepper retrieved the camera and looked at the photo. "The group shot turned out well." She said and she began scanning the other photos. Tony and Sophia joined her and looked over her shoulder at the pictures. "Oh Sophia, these pictures are gorgeous! Thank you so much for doing this for us."

"My pleasure." Sophia replied moving back to join her husband. "I enjoy taking pictures of people in love. I am so happy for the both of you."

Tony walked over to them and hugged Sophia so hard she squeaked in surprise and shook Judge Gonzales hand so hard he winced. "Thanks so much for marrying us on such short notice, and for your hospitality and help."

"You're welcome Mr. Stark." Judge Gonzales replied "And thank you for the generous donation to the Children's Center, MRS. STARK."

Pepper's breath caught in her throat as she realized that Judge Gonzales had just used her "new" name. She smiled at him and then added kiddingly. "Oh, and the next time you need a tour guide in Maui, you can borrow Tony."

Tony eyes sparkled mischievously "It would be an honor, Your Honor and Madame to be your personal tour guide. I know where all the good falls are!"

Judge Gonzales looked at his wife skeptically, and then looked at Tony. "We will take a rain check on that offer, Mr. Stark. We attract enough attention on Maui as it is!"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The trip back to Malibu started out quiet. Each of them were lost in their own thoughts. Pepper had her left hand on Tony's forearm again. Tony kept glancing at Pepper's rings and smiling.

Suddenly there was a muffled rumble Pepper recognized as Tony's stomach. "How about I call Guido's and order our usuals to go? We can swing by on the way home and pick up the food." Pepper then smiled lustfully at Tony. "Wild monkey sex is always better on a full stomach!"

Tony's eyebrows shot up. "Err.. that's sounds great: both the food and the wild monkey sex part." Tony reaching over to squeeze her left hand "I am hungry" he added "for both!"

Pepper pulled out her Blackberry and in less than a minute had ordered their food. "Martin says it will be about 20 minutes." She then sent Jarvis a message requesting that the bots set up seating for two on the patio, complete with candlelight. As she sent the message another message was received, this one from her Grandmother. "My Granddad's birthday party is this Saturday."

Tony glanced over at Pepper his eyes turning very serious. "I don't want you to stay at the mansion by yourself after I leave tomorrow. Going to your parent's ranch is a good idea. I don't have many friends in the Middle East, but Al Qaida has a ton of friends here in the USA. I think this kidnapping has been organized by their top guys, so when I go busting heads over there they may plan a retaliatory strike here." He put his Bluetooth ear piece in and asked it to dial Happy. "Hey Hap. I'm going to need you to pick Pepper up at 8:00 AM tomorrow at the mansion, and fly with her out to her parent's ranch. No, I am going to be out of the country. I am sending along Tom's A Team also since the ranch is a little isolated and you're going to need some help covering it. Thanks." Tony glanced over at Pepper who looked on the verge of objecting when he asked the Bluetooth to dial Tom Wiggins SI's security chief. "Sorry about the late call Tom, but I am going to need your A Team on protection duty for Pepper until at least the middle of next week. This must all remain quiet. No one must know where you are and that Pepper is with you. Can I get them assembled at my private jet way by 9:00 AM tomorrow? Great! Thanks." Tony then asked the Bluetooth to call Bill Thompson. "Bill I going to need you and Jerry to fly Pepper to her parents ranch near Flagstaff Arizona. This trip needs to be kept quiet. You will need to stay there until about mid week. Hap and Tom's A Team are going with Pepper. Thanks."

"Remember we need to stop by Guido's." Pepper said as the Audi turned back onto the PCH.

Tony pulled into the circle drive at Guido's and saw Martin waiting for them. Tony handed her a $100 and she gave it to Martin with a smile in exchange for the large box of food. She used her right hand keeping her left hand out of sight. "Thanks Martin!"

"My pleasure Ms. Potts, Mr. Stark. Enjoy the food and the beautiful evening." Martin cheerfully told them and waved at them as they drove away.

"I think Martin is hitting on you." Tony said softly, stealing a quick sideways glance at Pepper as she placed the box between her legs on the floor. "You know I can be quite the jealous husband."

"Caught me, Stark." Pepper purred "I really do have a thing for 72 year old restaurant owners whose idea of a pick up line is to talk about the weather."

Tony smiled at her and she gently squeezed his forearm. The short drive to the mansion was quiet. Tony pulled into Pepper's basement parking spot and he quickly got out and moved to open Pepper's door taking the food box from her with one hand and using the other hand to pull her up out of the car.

"Welcome home, Mrs. Stark." He said leaning in to kiss her gently on the lips as he pulled her into him.

"Thank you Mr. Stark." She replied running her hands under his jacket and up and down along his stomach. He shivered at her touch, nearly dropping the box of food. "Let's hurry with the food eating, so we can get on to the wild monkey sex, shall we."

He smiled and kissed her again more roughly than before, sucking on her lower lip, which he knew she liked. Pepper moaned into his mouth. "If you keep touching me like that before we eat, the only thing that I will be eating will be YOU!"

She looked up at him, smiled, grabbed her briefcase, and then grabbed his hand pulling him up the stairs. As he had promised Pepper, Jarvis and the bots had the lights dimmed, soft music playing, and the fireplace lit for them. The patio had been set up with a small table, two chairs, and two candles in holders that were burning brightly. "Welcome home Mr. and Mrs. Stark! Congratulations on your marriage. Long overdue in my opinion."

"Thank you Jarvis." Pepper replied politely.

"Long overdue in my opinion also." Tony replied opening the door to the patio while Pepper turned to the bar to pull out a bottle of wine, two glasses, and one water bottle. "Jarvis are you finished with all of the calculations for the mission?"

"Yes sir." Jarvis replied "everything is complete and ready to go. I might also add that the success probabilities have increased tremendously from earlier this evening up to 48%."

"Let's hope for a little good luck too." Tony replied. "Let me know if anything changes, if not then I will talk to you in the morning."

Jarvis acknowledged Tony's request for privacy for the rest of the night. "Understood, sir. I hope you and Mrs. Stark enjoy your wedding night."

Tony smiled as he set the food box on one side of the table and opened it. As was Guido's custom, there were two ceramic platters of food each sealed with a plastic cover and two sets of silverware. Tony set the platters out onto the table across from each other and grabbed the box and the covers and took them back inside the house as Pepper was returning from the bar.

"All set." He said as he took the wine bottle from her hands and opened the patio door for her. He glanced at his watch: 9:38PM. With any luck he thought, he and Pepper would be having wild monkey sex no later than 10:30PM. His wish for a night of wedding lovemaking with the woman of his dreams just might be coming true.

Tony pulled out Pepper's chair for her and poured her a glass of wine before sitting down. Pepper smiled at him. He sat down and poured himself two fingers of wine, opened the bottle of water and took a long drink. They began eating in silence, occasionally glancing up at one another. They both wanted to finish eating quickly, but still took the time to enjoy their dinner together like they had done countless times in the past.

Since neither one of them had eaten lunch today, they both finished up their meal rather quickly. Tony got up and picked Pepper's plate and silverware with his own, and put the glasses and water bottle on top. Pepper blew out both candles and picked up the wine bottle. She had only had one glass of wine, so she re-corked the bottle and followed Tony inside. Tony surprisingly put the platters and silverware in the dishwasher and the glasses in the sink without prompting. He grabbed 4 bottles of water out of the fridge for later holding them easily between the fingers of one hand.

Pepper eyed the water bottles looking questioningly at him.

"I expect both of us to be doing a lot of sweating tonight, Mrs. Stark." He said waggling his eyebrows seductively at her.

"Really, Mr. Stark." She replied opening the fridge and placing the bottle of wine in, and pulling out two lemon-lime Gatorades. She then moved to his side putting an arm around his waist. "Then maybe we should include some Gatorades to keep your electrolytes in balance and to keep all of your gorgeous muscles working at their optimum level."

"God I love it when you talk dirty to me!" he said wrapping his free arm around her waist as they moved towards the stairs.

"Oh you haven't heard anything yet." She said seductively is a low, deep voice.

Tony's manhood twitched at the sound of her voice, and he responded by grabbing her hand pulling her up the stairs. Tony flung open the master bedroom door and stopped both him and Pepper in the hallway. He then took the Gatorades from her. "Wait here a second." He went inside the bedroom and sat all of the bottles on one of the night tables and then returned to the doorway. He smiled broadly at her and quickly picked her up bridal style and carried her into the bedroom. "Happy Honeymoon, Mrs. Stark." He whispered in her ear as he leaned his head down to kiss her.

Pepper's hands moved to the back of his neck as they both deepened the kiss. Tony gently sat Pepper down on the side of the bed and then sat down next to her without breaking the kiss. Tony's pants were already tented showing his arousal. Pepper felt goose bumps rise up on her chest and back, and her panties were becoming wet with lust.

"Please let me undress you." He breathed into her ear sending another wave of goose bumps cascading down her neck to her chest. She moaned her reply of 'yes' to him, and he began to take off her suit jacket, tossing it on the floor. He felt his fingers trembling and sucked in a deep breath, willing the trembling to stop.

Pepper pulled back from him and grabbed both his hands. "It's OK Tony. I am shaking too. I feel scared and happy, and horny all at the same time."

Tony's eyes went wide at her words. "Yeah, I feel the same way. What are we going to do about this?" he motioned between the two of them.

"Make love to each other until all we feel is happy." She replied pulling his jacket off and tossing it to the floor on top of hers. She pushed him down on the bed and pulled his legs around onto the bed. She then hiked her skirt up to her waist and straddled his thighs, her eyes moving from his face to his growing manhood. She looked up and smiled at him and then reached down to unfasten his tie and slowly unbutton his dress shirt. She took off his cuff links and leaned over to place them on the night stand making sure that her breasts moved right over his face. Then she slowly pulled his shirt back to expose his chest running her fingers in circles around his nipples, pinching them. She planted a soft kiss in the middle of the Arc Reactor. Tony sucked in a quick breath and felt himself getting harder by the second. She reached for his belt, undoing it and pulling it out of the belt loops in his pants in a fluid quick motion, tossing it over the side of the bed. She then started unfastening his pants.

After recovering from Pepper's covered breasts being suddenly up close and personal, Tony's hands became just as busy as Pepper's. He was unbuttoning her blouse and pulling it back onto her shoulders. She briefly stopped with his pants to shrug her shirt off and onto the floor. She was wearing a light blue lacy bra which fastened in front. Tony licked his lips as he ran his fingers under the lace and pulled slightly on the bra.

She suddenly pulled him up to her, peeled his shirt and tie off, and deposited them swiftly on the growing pile of clothes next to the bed, immediately pushing him back down on the bed going back to work on his pants.

Tony had always loved a bossy Pepper. He had to force himself to keep his hands away from her bra, wanting to prolong the foreplay. He reached behind her instead and felt for the zipper to her skirt, and using both hands, managed to unzip it and tug it gently upwards to just below her bra. This movement exposed her blue lace thong and lots and lots of hips. Her panties were very wet with her arousal. Tony moaned loudly. "God, you are so gorgeous!"

Pepper had successfully now unzipped his pants and was debating her next move. Tony was very distracted massaging her hips with an intensity that bordered on painful. So, Pepper decided to speed things up a bit.

She reached down and pulled her skirt over her head in one quick motion, throwing it onto the ever growing pile of clothes on the side of the bed. Then she rose up to her knees, reaching down at the same time to goose Tony in the ass shooting him up off the mattress at the same time she pulled Tony's dress slacks down to his knees exposing his Iron Man boxer briefs.

Tony's eyes widened. "Wow, I have never had my pants taken off like that before! I think I'm in LOVE!"

"You better believe it, Mr. Stark." Pepper said sitting back down on this thighs and smiling at his choice of underwear for the night. "Let's see if there really is an Iron Man inside here." She ran the fingers of one hand over his bulging erection starting at his balls and ending up at his tip.

Tony growled deeply and grabbed her by both butt cheeks and pulled her towards him by slowly sliding her wet panties across his thighs and onto his waist to rest next to Iron Man Jr.

Pepper hissed and tried her best not to rip his underwear right off of him right then and impale herself on his rigid manhood. She barely restrained herself and found herself breathing so rapidly she wondered if she were going to hyperventilate. She distracted herself by turning and pulling his slacks further down his legs. Tony then kicked his pants along with his shoes off the bed.

"The first time can be with my shoes and thigh highs on if you like." She lustfully whispered into his right ear licking his ear lobe "After that Mr. Stark, I want my shoes off because my feet are killing me."

Upon hearing those words Tony quickly grabbed her and flipped their positions, and hovered over her. He yanked his underwear off with a flourish and tossed them over his shoulder. Then he slowly undid the front clasp of Pepper's bra helping her slide the straps off of her arms. He reached down with his mouth and tugged the bra out from behind her dropping it on her stomach. Then he licked his way down to her panties. He slid his tongue into the waistband of her panties and then gently tugged them down to her knees using his teeth finally pulling them off with one of his hands. He nipped and licked his way back up her body to her head making sure he spent extra time suckling both breasts.

Pepper was on the verge of both an orgasm and insanity at this point. Tony's eyes were so dark with lust they looked black in color. She shivered under his heated gaze.

"I am so hungry for you Pepper." He growled at her. "I am going to make you come so hard that you are going to forget about every other man except me." He moved his head back down between her legs hoisting both of her legs over his shoulders. As he nipped, licked, and sucked her, his hands ran up and down her thigh highs to her shoes and back up again.

Pepper was so wet and needy that she found herself writhing against Tony's head, her voice spilling out all sorts of words, some of them making sense, but most of them not making any sense at all…guttural random words urging him on, letting him know he was doing all the right things for her. As his tongue circled her clit and he began to suck, all of her physical and emotional barriers broke down at once. As the contractions of her orgasm overtook her, she screamed out his name and then broke down into tears, the release wringing out every emotion she had pent up inside her. She slowly became aware of Tony's hands stroking her stomach and her hips and murmuring her name.

"It's OK Pepper, I've got you. Let it all out Baby Mama. I love you so much." Tony whispered to her as he held on to her. He wanted to satisfy her totally and unselfishly. He was quite sure that he had never felt this way about anyone ever before. As her breathing rate slowed, he gently placed her legs back down on the bed and tenderly removed her high heels and her stockings. He massaged each foot for a few minutes hearing her moan in appreciation. Then he slowly moved his body up along hers, kissing every part of her he could reach and stroking all the other parts until he came to her lips. He kissed her passionately using his tongue like he wanted to use his manhood on her, driving his tongue into her mouth. He moaned in pleasure as her hands massaged his back muscles running her hands down to knead his buttocks and then back up again.

"I think it's time for that wild monkey sex now." She whispered in one ear and taking his earlobe into her mouth and nibbling on it. "Do you think the Stark Weapon of Mass Conception is ready for action?"

Tony pulled away from her and rose up on one elbow and gave her a big smile. With his free hand he positioned his tip at her entrance, took a deep breath, and gently pushed inside of her stretching her as he pushed. Her walls were like wet porcelain and the friction created between them was amazing. He found a slow rhythm that had her pushing back against him with every thrust. Tony knew that their first time would be short but sweet. "Can't… Hold… On… Very… Long." He managed to get out to her as his breathing became labored.

"Tony, just let go for me. I want you to come for me. I love you!" He started thrusting harder and his speed increased. Pepper met every one of his thrusts by arching up into him. Her Pilate training had enabled her to put just the right pressure on him as he drove himself in and out of her. Suddenly, she couldn't believe she was about to have another orgasm, but her body definitely seemed to have other plans. She started to tremble and her inner walls started to convulse around Tony. Her mind went blank and she swore she could see stars. "Oh god, Tony!"

Tony felt her contractions and began to thrust even harder and deeper. She cried out his name and dug her finger nails into his back and his neck. The pulsing of her orgasm finally pushed him over the edge and he came inside of her with a loud groan as he pulsed inside of her. His thrusts became erratic and he finally stopped doing his best not to collapse on top of her.

Tony slowly pulled out and rolled off of her, making them both moan again. He reached over and grabbed a discarded pillow and gently placed the pillow under her hips.

"This will give my boys the gravity advantage." He said curling up next to her and wrapping his arms around her. "You need to stay still for a few minutes and give them a chance to swim upstream.'

"OK" she murmured drowsily "I don't think I can move anyway. I love you Mr. Stark." Her eyes drifted closed.

He felt his eyes closing too, but not before he pressed a kiss to her forehead "I love you too, Mrs. Stark." Tony found himself praying that their first time would produce a Stark baby. He wanted to make sure that if something did happen to him on this mission, Pepper wouldn't be alone. After a few minutes, his body finally shut down, giving into sleep.

Tony became aware again as he felt a moist mouth gently sucking his rapidly hardening manhood. He looked down along his body only to find his view blocked by a somewhat messy head of strawberry blond hair moving slowly up and down. He felt his balls being massaged gently. "I can honestly say that I have never been woken up like this before and I like it!" He told her in a deep, sleepy voice as he gently stroked her hair. "I like it a lot!" He glanced over at the clock and saw that it was 1:03 AM. "How long have you been awake?"

"Just a few minutes" she managed to get out between licks "I was awoken by Tony Junior here trying to poke a hole in me and thought I needed to remedy that." She took his balls into her mouth one at a time.

Tony threw back his head onto the pillow and groaned. He pulled his hands out of Pepper's hair and grabbed the sheet on either side of him and held on. He was so hard his manhood was throbbing in time with his heart beat. He knew he was getting close "Pepper… please… I want… to come… in your… Pepperpot.. not your… mouth." He managed to get out between moans.

Pepper stopped moving and Tony could feel her shaking with laughter. "Did you just call my vagina a 'Pepperpot'?" she asked as she rose up to look over his chest to his face?

"I…. guess…I….did." He said through clinched teeth with his eyes tightly closed still deeply concentrating on fighting off his orgasm, as her hands were still very busy squeezing and kneading his balls.

She stopped what she was doing and scooted up on the bed and then leaned over him, pulling his hands away from the sheets. "So, you don't want to waste any of that Stark baby batter?" she said placing his hands on her breasts.

He cautiously opened his eyes and looked at her. "Nope" was all he managed to get out, his brain barely connected to his mouth at this point, his hands busy kneading her breasts.

"Then come here big boy." she said lustfully wrapping her arms around his neck and lowering herself onto the bed pulling him with her. "Let's make babies."

Tony sprang into action and pushed her down flat on the bed lifting her closest leg up and over his waist as he sank deeply into her. Both of them moaned loudly. Tony sucked in a quick breath and began thrusting deeply inside her. Their position allowed Tony to massage her breasts with his left hand as he began to alternate between squeezing and stroking each breast. He then moved his hand further down and gently pressed on her "Pepperpot' making her groan and whimper even more. "Oh god, Tony. That feels so…good…..don't.…ever…stop."

Tony grunted and thrust even harder into her. His right hand held on to her shoulder and he kissed and suckled her neck. Her hands stroked his arms and chest.

She could feel her orgasm building and she could feel him speed up his thrusting. "Just…a …little…more" she moaned.

Tony pushed down a little harder on her clit and he felt her gasp once, twice and started to feel her walls contract around him. He couldn't hold back any longer as he felt the orgasm start at the base of his spine and spread out into his manhood. As he surged into her hard and began emptying himself "Pepper!" was all he could manage to get out of his mouth between moans. He thrust a few more times into her before everything went black and he lost consciousness.

He awoke in the same position a few minutes later to the sound of Pepper's soothing voice and her hands caressing his cheek. "Tony, it's OK, just rest for a while. I love you."

At her words he smiled and whispered into her neck. "All I'm feeling now is happy, Pepper."

"Me too." She replied and they both drifted into a deep post orgasmic sleep.

They woke up an hour later and made love all over again. This pattern repeated itself twice more before Pepper was awakened by her Blackberry chime at 5:30AM. All of the water and Gatorade bottles had been emptied and were now scattered all over the floor amongst their clothing.

Tony was still sound asleep and she debated going downstairs without waking him, but thought better of it. "I'm going downstairs to start baking bacon in the oven." She whispered in his ear as she pulled herself out of his arms. "You stay here and sleep and I'll be back in a few minutes."

Tony cracked open one eye and reached over to grab one of her arms. "M'kay, I love you Pepperpot."

"I love you too, Tony, now go back to sleep." She stroked his abs for a minute until he settled back into a sound sleep, lightly snoring. She leaned down and brushed the hair from his forehead and planted a soft kiss there, then eased herself off of the bed. She padded over to the closet and pulled out one of Tony's bath robes, put it on, and quietly left the bedroom shutting the door behind her.

Pepper got in the kitchen and pulled the bacon out of the freezer and placed it into the microwave to defrost while she turned on the oven. She loaded and set the timer on the coffee machine. Then she pulled out the pancake mix and made batter for 8 pancakes. She pulled the chocolate chips out of the freezer so they could thaw out. The microwave dinged and Pepper pulled the bacon out and laid 12 pieces on a cookie sheet. Then she covered the bacon with brown sugar and slid the sheet into the oven. She programmed the oven to have the bacon done by 6:15AM and walked back upstairs to the bedroom.

Tony was wide awake and laying with his head propped up on two pillows staring at the bedroom door. "After you left I just couldn't go back to sleep. It suddenly dawned on me that not only can't I live without you, but I can't sleep without you either."

"Oh Tony." She whispered laying down with her head on his chest. She ran her hands up and down his ribcage. "When you get back from the mission, you're going to meet me at my parent's ranch, right?" He nodded and she continued. "My granddad has a 1941 Ford ½ ton pick-up with a 221 flathead that he needs help repairing. I think you and he could work on it together and get it running right." Pepper knew that Tony loved old cars and trucks and she wanted to give him something pleasant to think about and plan in the back of his mind. He lived to multi-task.

Tony shifted on his pillow, his interest definitely peaked "A 221 Flathead huh, yeah, I might be able to help him out." He kissed her on the top of the head as he rubbed circles on her back. "Wait a minute, how do you know about flatheads?"

"Tony, I was raised on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. We were 5 miles from our nearest neighbor and 20 miles from the nearest town. That isolation forces you to become mechanically inclined. For extra money, I worked summers at the local tractor dealer in Flagstaff as a mechanic."

"You were a diesel mechanic? Why am I just now finding this out about you?" He exclaimed rolling himself over on top of her and looking down on her.

"Two reasons: 1: You never asked, and 2: You don't own any diesel powered vehicles that I could amaze and impress you with my mechanical abilities on." She pulled him down into a kiss as he slid the robe off of her and he began to suckle her breasts. "Shower for two, Mr. Stark?"

He lifted his head from her chest, pressed a quick kiss to her lips, and rolled off the bed pulling her with him and pulling her out of the robe. "Shower for two Mrs. Stark." He backed her towards the bathroom door as he continued to plant kisses on her face and neck. By the time they reached the shower he was already sporting an erection and his manhood was pinned between their stomachs.

"Have you ever made love on a creeper under a tractor?" he asked her breathlessly.

"No" she replied matter of factly "there's not enough ground clearance on most tractors to do that, Tony."

"I guess that depends on the size of the implement it's pulling, doesn't it?" He replied kissing her deeply and squeezing her backside lovingly "I have a pretty big implement you know."

"I have heard rumors to that effect, Mr. Stark" she replied trying not to look down between their bodies. "Almost as big as your ego." She backed into the shower, gently pulling him in with her. "You and your implement need to get in the shower now!"

Tony's shower was big enough for four people, so the two of them had plenty of room. Pepper gently pushed Tony onto the seating ledge as the warm water of the shower blanketed them. She put her arms around his neck again and kissed him passionately as she lowered herself on to his rigid manhood. The ledge was the perfect height for her to ride him and she started out slow relaxing her muscles on the downside and contracting when she lifted herself up. His hands were on her waist and his head was against the shower wall, eyes screwed shut in ecstasy, his mouth slightly open. She let his hands dictate the speed of travel. After a few minutes, Tony's hands became more demanding, and Pepper sped up her movements. She waited until he was moaning and trembling with lust and then she started contracting her muscles as she moved downward also. She was getting very aroused herself and she found herself leaning forward so their pelvic bones collided on every down stroke. After a few more minutes, their movements became more intense and somewhat out of control.

"God Pepper!" Tony cried out as he grabbed her hard and pulled her down onto his lap as his orgasm hit him. He pulsed into her once, then again, then again. He had never recalled ever coming this hard before, and then he suddenly felt like he was on the verge of blacking out again.

Feeling him coming inside of her, Pepper lifted her legs and ground herself into his pubic bone as her orgasm tossed her with wave after wave of pleasure. "Tony! …Oh my! ..Tony! ..So good, so good." She tried to regain her footing, but her legs became weak and she fought for her balance, grabbing onto the handrail just to the left of Tony's head. This motion also pulled her chest into Tony's face.

Tony felt her breasts in his face and all thoughts of blacking out were gone immediately. "Pepper, are you OK. I didn't hurt you did I?

"I'm fine" she replied kissing the top of his head "I just have a case of the jelly legs, give me a moment and I will get up."

"You don't have to get up" he said sucking on one of her nipples conveniently placed near his mouth "I like where you are!"

"We need to wash up and finish our shower so we can eat." She said moving her legs back under her.

"I know, I just want to stay like this a few more minutes." He whispered desperately. Tony didn't want to let go of her. As much as he had been trying to keep negative thoughts about their future together locked away in his mind, he was starting to weaken as his time for departure grew closer. This could be the last time he would be with Pepper, and he wanted to hang on as long as he could.

Pepper stopped moving away from him immediately. She sensed a change in his mood. She suddenly wanted to make this moment last a little longer too. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him gently. "I love you, Anthony Stark."

"And I love you Pepperpot Stark." Tony whispered planting more kisses to her breasts and chest, glancing up quickly at her to see if she had caught his name reference.

Pepper smiled at his new name for her "You know that you absolutely can not call me Pepperpot in public, right?"

"Yes. dear." He replied in between kisses. "I will call you Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons in public!"

Pepper smacked him on top of his head as they both started to laugh.

They slowly finished their shower, lovingly washing each others bodies and hair. Time was getting short as they got out to dry off, brush teeth, and brush hair. Tony didn't want to shave before the mission (a superstition he had developed). They put on Tony's sweat pants and t-shirts and went downstairs to eat.

Pepper turned the griddle on, and as she waited for it to heat up she pulled the cookie sheet out of the oven. Tony leaned over one of her shoulders as she pulled the bacon off the sheet. Pepper took one of the slices and held it over her shoulder. In a flash Tony put the entire piece in his mouth. Then he moved over to the coffee machine getting two mugs from the cabinet. He fixed her coffee the way she liked it and took both mugs to the counter that bordered the kitchen and placed them in front of two bar stools sitting side by side.

"Could you get the chocolate chips out of the fridge for me please" she asked him sweetly.

"You bet!" Tony replied pulling out the bag "Wait a minute, are you fixing chocolate chip pancakes for me?"

"Of course." She replied as he handed her the bag. He quickly placed a kiss on her neck after moving her damp wavy hair out of the way and squeezed her hips tightly.

"You approve I take it." She said. He replied by kissing her on the other side of the neck.

"Yes, Mrs. Stark, I approve." He started to turn away from her but something about her caught his eye. "You look different this morning."

"My hair is wet and curling like a poodle, and I don't have any makeup on. Surprise: this is the real morning me." She joked pouring out four pancakes onto the griddle.

"No, I don't mean that" he tried to explain. "I mean your whole skin tone is different, almost like you're glowing."

"It's hot standing over this griddle, Mr. Stark" she replied "Or it could be all of that hot loving that I've had last night and this morning!"

"That's it. You're my hot Baby Mama now." He teased turning away from her.

She placed the cooked pancakes on a platter and poured the remaining 4 pancakes on the griddle and thought to herself about what he had just said. 'No, it couldn't be, could it? You couldn't be pregnant already could you?' She flipped the pancakes.

Tony was busy setting out plates and silverware and also thought about what he just said. 'She couldn't be pregnant already, could she?'

She put the cooked pancakes with the others on the platter and set it on the counter top between the plates next to the bacon that Tony had already set down and eaten half of. Then she opened the fridge and got out butter, maple and blueberry syrup, and of course the can of whipped cream and put those on the counter top.

She walked around as Tony pulled her bar stool out for her and he sat quickly down beside her. The clock on the wall displayed 6:40AM.

They ate in silence until Tony, who had just eaten the last slice of bacon, asked the question that both of them had on their minds. "Do you think you're pregnant?"

"I've been asking myself that same question." She admitted "I do feel a little strange, but so much has been happening in the last 12 hours, that this feeling may be just stress"

"Pepper, you've been under stress for 11 years. If you feel different now then maybe you are pregnant."

He got up to pick up dishes and started putting them in the dishwasher.

She started to get up to put away the butter, syrup, and whip cream, and she stopped suddenly and looked at her coffee. "I need to change to de-caf."

Tony turned to her quickly a smile breaking out on his face. He locked eyes with hers. He suddenly looked down at his crotch and gave it a slap with one hand "High five, Tony Junior. Good job!"

Pepper rolled her eyes at him and smiled. "No matter how many kids we have, there is always going to be one more, right Tony Junior."

"Oh yeah!" Tony replied strutting towards her taking her in his arms, leaning her backwards, and kissing her passionately.

"It's time to begin suiting up, Mr. Stark." Jarvis announced.

Pepper pulled Tony close and hugged him tightly. They put their arms around each other as they moved towards the staircase to the workshop in silence.

"Keep in touch with Jarvis so you can call Rhody and get the cavalry to me when I need them. Jarvis will fill you in after I leave on the specifics of the plan and tentative time line." They entered the workshop to find the bots waiting next to the assembly pad. Pepper helped him put on the neoprene suit. They were trying to keep their emotions in check. He stepped up on the pad and the bots starting the suit assembly process. There would be no goodbye kiss for them. That omission was also another superstition of Tony's. Before the helmet slid into place, Tony turned to look at her, as was his habit (another superstition actually) and shouted at her "You complete me, Mrs. Stark!" And with that Jarvis opened the hatch door and Tony blasted out of the workshop and into the cloudless morning sky.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Pepper stared at the sky until Jarvis closed the hatch. Then she numbly turned away and walked upstairs to the guest room that she had used for years as her room. She slowly changed clothes and looked at the t-shirt she had been wearing. It was one of Tony's shirts and she held it to her nose. She inhaled deeply smelling him on the shirt. She pulled out her rolling suitcase, packed the t-shirt and Tony's sweat pants in her suitcase and then started packing her own clothes for her trip to her parent's ranch. She rolled the suitcase into the master bedroom and went into the bathroom to retrieve her toiletries that she had left there. As she grabbed her straightener she saw Tony's razor and gently touched it. Tears filled her eyes suddenly, and she sat down on the chair next to the counter and put her head in her hands sobbing uncontrollably. She wasn't be sure how long she had been crying, when she felt something cold poke her and she turned to find Dummy, holding a box of tissues, and Butterfingers, holding a bottle of cold water, huddled around her chair.

"I thought you might require some assistance, Mrs. Stark" Jarvis said.

Pepper took a tissue from Dummy and blew her nose noisily. "You thought right, Jarvis. Thanks." She quietly said, still sniffling. She patted Dummy on the head, and turned taking the water from Butterfingers also patting him on the head.

She stood up and looked at herself in the mirror critically. "This is no way for a CEO to act, is it Jarvis?"

"I have read that some venting of emotion actually helps restore emotional equilibrium to the human psyche."

She rested her hands on Dummy and Butterfingers and looked up at the ceiling. "Thanks for helping me get my head back on straight, guys." She turned and grabbed Tony's razor, and his other toiletries, and went back into the bedroom and put them on the dresser. She took one of Tony's rolling suitcases out of his closet, placed his toiletries into the suitcase and then started packing casual clothes for Tony to wear. She finished packing both bags and stood them besides each other so she could pick them both up. Suddenly Dummy and Butterfingers beeped and moved forward to each grab a suitcase and both turned towards the door banging into each other in a race to be the first one out the door to the elevator. Pepper shook her head and smiled.

Pepper grabbed her Blackberry from the night table and dialed a number. She knew that her assistant came in at 7:00AM everyday to avoid the traffic "Good Morning, Bambi. I know this is short notice, but I need you to clear out my schedule until next Thursday. A family emergency has come up and I will be out of town until then." She spoke softly. Her assistant spoke in a concerned voice. "No, nothing serious, just some family business that I need to personally attend to. Yes, Mr. Stark will be with me." Pepper winced as she mentioned Tony. "As I recall, I don't have many meetings scheduled for the remainder of this week, and there is enough time to reschedule the ones for next week. If someone gives you a problem with rescheduling, just let me know and I will call them personally. Thanks." Pepper liked Bambi. She had been with SI for 32 years and her knowledge of SI and it's people was invaluable. She was a hard ass in dealing with contractors and was a gatekeeper extraordinaire for Pepper. Bambi had a pleasant personality and enjoyed her work, but she was also very structured and didn't take no for an answer from anyone. She didn't like telling her that Tony was with her on this trip, but if everything worked out then Tony would join her later, so her disclosure wasn't technically lying. Bambi was very much aware of her and Tony's relationship. Bambi wasn't as naive as her nickname implied. Bambi's real name was Clarice McDonald, but she had earned the nickname of Bambi as a child being obsessed with Walt Disney animal movies.

Pepper moved down the hallways to the stairs. It was already 7:35AM and Happy would be showing up soon. "OK Jarvis" she spoke "let me get my laptop set up and we can go over our plan of action. I don't want to get Happy involved with this because the fewer people knowing what's going on the better it will be for Tony."

"I totally agree Mrs. Stark." Jarvis replied.

Pepper opened up her laptop and accessed the Mansion's shared drive. She took a moment to look over the details that Jarvis had assembled. "Have you also loaded the direct land line numbers into my Blackberry for the Marine Battalion Commander, just in case I can't reach Rhody?"

"Of course, Madam." Jarvis replied patiently.

"OK. Once I leave you will activate protocol Alcatraz. Nothing gets in or out, right?" Pepper knew how Jarvis would answer. The location of the mansion was a great place from a partying perspective. However, it's location was a nightmare from a security perspective. After Tony's disastrous birthday party, the reconstruction added huge amounts of concrete and steel to the structure making it more secure, but not impenetrable even with the installation of highly sophisticated electronic hardware and software, most of them prototypes. Jarvis' servers had been located even deeper underground and more independent back-up power sources were added. Programming was added to upload via coded satellite links to other secured servers located in the US in the event of cataclysmic failures. Redundancy was abundant.

"Absolutely, Mrs. Stark." Jarvis answered her back. "Mr. Hogan has arrived and is just pulling into the garage."

"Thank you, Jarvis." She powered her laptop down and secured it in her briefcase.

The elevator opened a few minutes later and Happy came into the living room. "Morning Pepper." He said not looking at her. "Sorry I'm a few minutes late. Your bags were downstairs with Dummy and Butterfingers standing guard over them, and I had to practically wrestle them to get the bags away from them and in the car. I don't know what has gotten into them."

"They have been a little protective lately. Pepper replied with an innocent smile. "We need to take this with us also." She pointed to the latest version of the suitcase Iron Man suit that Tony had placed beside the couch last night. "Are you ready for a little fresh country air?

"Fresh air is always good. I will hold out on the country part though. I'm a city boy and wide open spaces scare the hell out me. I'm glad Tony got Tom's guys to go with us. I know something big is going down with you and Tony, but I know better than to ask what it is." Happy replied as they entered the elevator.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

As they were crossing over Arizona, Tony had Jarvis cruise low enough over Pepper's parent's ranch to look around. He could make out two houses and what appeared to be several large workshops, and a huge barn with a corral attached to it. Trucks were scattered around the buildings. No cars though. He sighed and wished he was on his way back from Afghanistan already. He already missed Pepper. "Take us back up to cruising altitude, Jarvis." He said out loud. "I want to get at least 12 hours of sleep on the way over."

"Affirmative sir, sleep well Mr. Stark." Jarvis replied.

Tony suddenly was exhausted. He had grown very comfortable sleeping in his suit while on past missions. He slowly closed his eyes and in no time had drifted off to sleep. He dreamed about Pepper and about red headed, freckled-faced kids.

"Mr. Stark we are now approaching Afgan air space." Jarvis announced inside his helmet almost 16 hours later.

This was always the hardest part of waking up in the suit: He couldn't stretch. He loved to stretch out his muscles after a good sleep. At least on auto pilot his head could drift downward to a more natural position while sleeping without compromising the suit's trajectory, so he didn't wake up with a stiff neck. He had added additional stabilizing fins to the suit long ago which allowed him to do that.

Because of his size and the stealth feature, he could cruise high above his targets without fear of detection. The suit was painted a diffused flat black color and the eyes and arc reactor lighting were totally blacked out. Tony called this being 'rigged for silent running'. It worked. Motion detectors like the ones Shield has installed at his mansion would detect him, but nothing else would until he got close enough to get a visual on. But under the cover of darkness, the suit was practically undetectable. With on board weaponry, the suit weight itself, and his own body weight which he had built back up to a muscular 201 pounds after getting over palladium poisoning, the combined weight of the suit was right at 350 pounds. The suit looked like a metallic offensive lineman for the NFL. It scared the hell out of people. Tony appreciated the fear because it made his job a little easier. But the best feature of the suit was, in Tony's opinion, was the cushioning effect in the soles of the boots. He had taken the on board fresh air intake and diverted part of it into hundreds of exhaust ports blanketing the bottom of each boot. Not enough air to throw up a dust cloud, but enough to cushion and muffle the footsteps of the boots. With the added harmonic adjustments to the armatures at the joints of the suit, the suit could operate very quietly on the ground. Tony had christened the suit "The Ninja".

The tricky part of this mission was once he was in the cave, finding the correct pathway to the Americans in as short amount of time as possible, while killing as many of the captors as he could. He also had to make sure that neither he nor the bad guys did anything to collapse the cave's ceiling. The plan was to follow the power cable to the guard's station, and then follow the coax to the camera that was in the holding area with the Americans. He would also have Jarvis monitor the strength of the transmitter signals from Jones and Watkins using the signal like a Geiger counter. The last straw plan was to use the old fashioned method of tracking footprints on the dirt floor of the cave (Jones and Watkins had very distinctive and unique tread design on the soles of their boots.). Hopefully, the three tracking methods used together would find the Americans. As he passed high over the cave area mapping the locations of people, equipment, and topography for the 40th time, Jarvis was analyzing the data and fine tuning their rescue plan. The local weather forecast called for a frontal passage that night producing gusty winds in excess of 25 MPH.

"Looks like gusty conditions for tonight, Jarvis." He said "Good for us, bad for the bad guys!"


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

It was only an hour and a half flight from the SI gate at LAX to Flagstaff. They were aboard Tony's private jet, not the SI jet. In the car ride to LAX, Happy had noticed Pepper's wedding rings, but didn't ask anything about her marriage. When he spoke with Tony last night he could sense the tension in his voice and his strong need to protect Pepper. Tony's conspicuous absence from on board the jet had Happy a little worried. If Tony was that worried about Pepper, then Tony would be here with her too if he could. He caught himself staring at Pepper occasionally during the flight. A few times she had looked up at him at the same time he had been staring. Happy wasn't positive, but he thought he saw fear mixed with worry in her gaze. He was a very intuitive person by nature, and that trait lended itself well to being a body guard. The news of the Americans' kidnappings was on every news station and all over the internet. The news media was saying that a rescue attempt would be suicidal because the hostages were probably being held deep underground in a well guarded cave hidden in the mountains. Even if someone tried to rescue the hostages the hostages would most likely be killed in the rescue attempt. It seemed to be a pretty hopeless situation. Happy finally put one and one together: Tony wasn't here because he was in Afghanistan on a suicide rescue mission alone. He and Pepper had gotten married on the spur of the moment because they believed Tony wouldn't make it back alive. Happy was saddened at the thought. It was a very quiet ride to Flagstaff.

When they touched down, Pepper went into the cock pit and talked with Bill and Jerry. They hugged her and told her that they would be staying on board the plane with the rest of the crew until she wanted to leave to go back to California. That was Tony's orders. Tony was concerned about security for both the plane and Pepper having the ability to leave at a moments notice. Pepper tried to talk them into staying at a hotel, but they refused. The pilots had probably put one and one together also. The jet was going to be hangered in a private hanger on one side of the airfield. This particular hanger was well equipped with living quarters.

Jarvis had arranged to rent 3 Escalades at the Pulliam Field airport. Each SUV was a different color so it would be easier to keep up with seating assignments. The security team would be split between the SUVs with Pepper in the SUV in the middle of the convoy with Happy as the driver. Once the jet and the SUVs were inside the private hanger, it took some time to load unmarked boxes out of the cargo hatch and into the Escalades. Happy knew that they were packing some pretty heavy heat in the Escalades.

The Potts family ranch was located 20 miles northwest of Flagstaff. Pepper was providing turn by turn directions for the group. They were using their satellite phones that had security encoding for communications between the SUVs. The scenery was gorgeous, but the isolation of the area was intense.

"Pepper were you raised out here on your parent's ranch?" Happy asked softly craning his neck up at the mountains.

"I was actually born and raised on the ranch. I left home for the first time when I went to UCLA." She replied also looking up at the mountains. "Don't worry, my grandma will tell you all about my checkered childhood…she loves to embarrass the hell out of me!"

Happy chuckled. "My grandma loves to do that to me too. I think it's one of the privileges of being old enough to be grandparent. But god, can that woman cook. I always tell her that she can say anything she wants to about me as long as she feeds me!"

As they drove up a steep narrow asphalt road they came to a gate that read 'Rainbow Ranch' "Turn in here." Pepper said. "You could have just killed my dad and granddad when the gay coalition made the rainbow their symbol. The ranch gets a ton of 'wrong number' calls now. Actually our ranch was named for the Navajo story of creation which has as its symbol the rainbow. Our brand is two Rs back to back with a half circle over them. This ranch has been a working ranch for over 90 years. Our family has owned it for over 60 years"

Happy heard the pride in Pepper's voice as she spoke of her family's ranch. "So when you retire in 40 years or so, do you want to move back here to live?

"You never know Happy." Pepper relied somewhat sadly "Right now I can only take my life one day at a time."

Happy winced. The rest of the ride was in silence.

The gravel/rock drive was long and winding and went on for almost 3 miles winding higher and higher, until they came upon a flat clearing with two houses, what looked to be a large bunkhouse, workshops, and large barn and corral, and assorted pick up trucks and trailers. "Welcome to Our Little Piece of Heaven" a sign in front of the larger and more modern of the two homes read.

Pepper got out of the car first and motioned for everyone else to stay inside the cars.

Suddenly two large Rottweilers, and 4 Dachshunds came barreling down to the SUVs from the barn area, barking, and looking like they were going to eat the SUVs whole. That was until they got close enough to see Pepper.

"Hey guys!" Pepper said as she began petting 6 heads at once. The barking had turned to crying and squealing and other odd noises as 6 tails wagged in unison. After a minute of furious petting, she motioned for Happy to get out of the SUV. Happy liked dogs especially Dachshunds because his family owned several.

"Well, hello to you too" Happy got out before his was overrun with dogs. He started petting and scratching all the heads he could reach. Pepper stood with Happy and talked to the dogs.

"Happy is a friend, guys." Pepper spoke to the dogs as Happy petted them.

By that time two men approached the SUVs from the barn. At the same time the front door of one of the houses opened and 3 ladies approached the group also.

Happy continued to pet the menagerie. "I'm going to introduce the guys and the dogs to each other so no one gets bitten, at least not too badly" He knew that Pepper's family was going to have a ton of questions and they needed some alone time together. "Me and the guys are going to look around and set up some perimeter security and get a feel for the layout of the property. I know they will want to install a wireless camera at the front gate right away. We will let you know what else we come up with."

"Thanks Happy" Pepper started touching him lightly on the arm "for everything. After I talk to my family I want to get all of us together so my family can meet all of you."

Happy nodded and turned towards the other SUVs the dogs following right behind him.

"Hi family." Pepper turned and looked up at her family who had already begun to have worried expressions on their faces. Pepper showing up unannounced was so out of character for her. Pepper bringing with her a group of men who looked like FBI G men was downright unnerving.

Pepper's mom Anne moved to hug Pepper lovingly. "What's wrong?

"Can we all go inside and talk for a few minutes?" Pepper managed to get out holding on to her Mom's arm.

Each of her family silently moved towards Pepper and each gave her a welcome hug, and then they moved inside of the house.

The walked into the living room and sat down. Pepper had her grandmother Charlotte, and her mom Anne on either side. Her sister-in-law, Debbie sat on the sofa table directly in front of Pepper. And Pepper's dad Ronald, and granddad, Eddie each pulled up chairs on either side of the sofa table. They had already noticed Pepper's wedding rings and the look on Ronald's face was almost angry. They were all trying to be patient and not all ask questions at once.

"Spit it out girl! " Eddie finally cracked unable to stand the silence any longer.

Pepper put her head in her hands, sighed heavily, and then looked up at Debbie. "Sorry about the surprise visit. I know all of you have a lot of questions. I'll do my best to answer them. If I can't answer them because of security issues I will let you know I just can't answer them." Pepper started to wring her hands as she would often do when she was nervous, but Anna and Charlotte each grabbed one of her hands and held on. Pepper hadn't visited her family in over a year and a half. They kept in touch almost weekly by telephone, but Pepper would rarely talk about herself during these conversations, she always wanted to find out what and how her family was doing instead. Pepper didn't want her family to worry about her. Her life after Tony's capture was filled with a lot of dangers and fears that she didn't want her family to know about.

Finally Ronald couldn't stay silent any more. "Is one of those guys outside your husband?"

"No." Pepper answered flatly. "The man whom I spoke with is a good friend who is our primary body guard, Hap Hogan. The other men are Stark Industries security personnel. They are here to protect me and you from possible harm. Except for you, SI security, and our pilots and crew, who are sworn to secrecy, no one knows where I am right now. I am going to introduce you all to all of the security guys, but only after we finish here. Most of what I will be telling you, they don't have a need to know."

At that statement, her family became quiet.

"First off, as you all have noticed my wedding rings by now, especially you Dad, yes, I am married. I married Tony Stark last night in California in a private civil ceremony attended only by a Federal Judge and his wife who are friends of ours. We got married on the spur of the moment in secrecy because Tony had to leave early this morning to go out of the country."

"As Iron Man? Debbie asked putting her hand on Pepper's leg as support.

"I can't answer that right now." Pepper replied looking down at Debbie's hand.

"Does this have anything to do with the kidnapping of those Marines in Afghanistan?" Anna asked squeezing Pepper's hand.

"I can't answer that right now either." Pepper softly said squeezing her mom's hand back. Her family played a mean game of 20 questions.

"What can you tell us, baby?" Charlotte asked quietly taking Pepper's hand within both of hers.

Pepper took a deep breath. "That the man I've been in love with for years, who has also been in love with me since we met and never told me until last night, left this morning to do something so dangerous that he will probably not make it back alive, and that we married each other so we could have one night as a couple before he left." Pepper couldn't hold the tears back any longer. "I am so afraid." she sobbed "Tony wanted to make sure that I wasn't left alone while waiting to see what will happen to him, so he made arrangements to get me out here to you this morning."

"Oh, I'm so sorry Pepper!" Anna cried pulling Pepper into a hug.

Everyone in the room at that point had begun to tear up. Even Ronald and Eddie shed some tears for Pepper in her sadness. Neither one of them cried easily. Pepper and Tony's situation reminded Eddie of some of his friends in the Vietnam War who had married their girls right before they shipped out. Most of those guys died fighting in the jungles of Vietnam only leaving widows behind.

After a few minutes Pepper seemed to calm down and quit crying. She sniffled as Debbie handed her some tissues and started to pass the box of tissues around to the rest of the family.

"Pepper, none of us in this room like to feel helpless and hopeless. I have known you too long to believe you don't have some kind of plan in the works. We know you can't tell us everything. But you can let us comfort and support you. We can all tell that you are exhausted from lack of sleep and worry. A soft bed will take care of your exhaustion. Tell us how else we can help you? Debbie said quietly.

Pepper looked up and smiled sadly. "First and most important, you must keep me being here quiet for a few days. I want to keep the boys at home tomorrow and Friday if at all possible in order to prevent some security problems. They are going to have body guards assigned to them also and they need time to adjust."

"They are actually out of school on Friday for a Teacher Service day, and keeping them here tomorrow will not be a problem." Debbie replied "You know them…they love their Aunt Pepper! They will love you even more for getting them out of school!"

Pepper loved her nephews. She had already set up college accounts for all three of them with her hefty SI salary over the years. Her brother had died when the youngest, Arliss was still an infant, and Pepper had been providing help for them ever since. Arliss and Travis had been named after her brother's favorite movie "Old Yeller" characters, and Eddie had been named after their great grandfather. Eddie was the oldest and possessed a warm, generous personality and was a natural leader like his father. Travis was middle child and the scientist tending to be a little on the shy side. And Arliss was every bit as wild and energetic as his namesake from the movie. He possessed a sling shot that would put David's sling from the Bible story of David and Goliath to shame. But no matter what trouble Arliss got himself into, his charisma and charm always seemed to get himself out.

"OK, I'll get our security guys into the dining hall and we get started on working out the security arrangements." Pepper started as she hugged every one and moved to stand up.

"I'll get started on coffee" Anna said

"I will cut pies." Charlotte said and then glared at Eddie "Don't get your panties in a wad, I will bake you more pies for your birthday!"

The dining hall was a large narrow room with a door to the kitchen on one end and a door to the living room on the other. In the middle was a door to the outside leading towards the barn. It was designed as a serving area for ranch hands and family alike. It featured a sectionalized table with chairs on both sides seating up to 30 people.

Pepper went outside and called Happy and the security guys inside into the dining hall. The SI security A Team was a group of 12 men ranging in age from 30 to 50 years. Most were ex-military and had been working for SI since they had left the military. They were very professional and had pleasant personalities; however, they took their assignments with SI very seriously and dressed the part like G Men. Pepper motioned them inside to sit at the table. Ronald sat out the giant coffee maker on one of the counter bordering the dining hall with the kitchen. Eddie brought out a tray with coffee mugs loaded on it. Charlotte set cut pies out on the counter, Anna set plates, and Debbie brought out forks and napkins. They were very practiced at feeding large groups and it showed.

After a few minutes, everyone took a seat around the table. Pepper sat at one of the ends of the table and everyone turned their attention to her.

"Let me start by introducing everyone." Pepper started looking around the table. Once introductions were made she continued. "SI's security personnel provides some of the finest security to it's employees and families all over the world. These guys are the best security team that SI has the privilege to employ and that's why we refer to them as the "A Team" or Alpha Team." Pepper looked at each team member in turn and smiled at Happy. "Mr. Hogan here has been a good friend, co-worker, and body guard for almost 11 years. He has saved me personally from countless dangerous situations and people for all of those years. My family's security is my number 1 concern at the moment. I have already given the A Team detailed information on my family and have asked them to come up with both a short term and a long term security plan. But before we get started, I want to have a short break to allow everyone accessibility to the restrooms and to help yourselves to pie and coffee."

With that, chairs were pushed back and everyone started moving about. Pepper directed some security guys to the restrooms.

"Mom" Pepper asked Anna pulling her to the side "Do you have any decaf tea or coffee I could drink?"

"I have some decaf green tea bags, sweetie" she replied "Since when do you drink decaf in the morning?

Pepper unconsciously rubbed her stomach, then realized what she had done and tried to recover quickly "I didn't want the caffeine to keep me awake later when I lay down to take a nap."

Pepper's movement to rub her stomach was not lost on her mother "I will get the tea bags out for you."

After about 10 minutes of socializing and eating, Pepper requested that everyone sit back down.

"What I expect everyone to take away from this meeting is a clear but general plan for security for our family. And yes, Mom and Grand mom, we will discuss care and feeding of the SI security team!" Pepper smiled at her mom and grand mom who were excited because they LOVED to cook for large groups. "We will set up a smaller meeting tomorrow to discuss with the boys. The details and technology from the A Team will not be discussed at this meeting simply because most of the security technology is proprietary."

After the meeting Pepper and her father grabbed her and Tony's suitcases and headed for the old farm house located about 300 feet from their big house. Pepper was so tired, all she wanted to do was lay down and take a good long nap. The boys got home from school around 6:00 PM so Pepper planned on sleeping until they came home.

As they walked into the old two story farm house, Pepper's dad spoke up. "Do you want to stay in your usual spot upstairs or downstairs next to Opa and Oma?" Pepper's grandfather was of German ancestry and enjoyed being called Opa. It was one of his tamer nicknames. Arliss had definitely gotten his wild genes from Eddie. Pepper knew that her dad thought being closer to her grandparents room might make her sleep easier.

"Upstairs Dad, thanks." She replied moving towards the staircase. The ranch house was built in 1920. It was one of only a hand full of two story ranch houses built during that time in northern Arizona. It had been updated several times but still retained all of it's charm and history.

The bedroom contained a full size bed and some built in shelving, a small closet, and another door that opened up into a Jack and Jill bathroom. A single large window bisected the room giving it a great view of the surrounding mountains.

"We will call you for supper around 6:00 when the boys get home." He told her as he set down Tony's suitcase by the dresser and placed Pepper's suitcase on the bed. Pepper's dad was a tall, quiet, hardworking man who was not one to be overemotional. Pepper had definitely gotten a lot of her personality from him. He started to walk out, hesitated and then turned around and gave Pepper a hug. "Keep your faith and keep prayin'. Everything's gonna be fine, you'll see."

Pepper hugged him back. "Thanks, Dad."

Pepper opened her suitcase and pulled out Tony's MIT t-shirt and sweat pants. She set her Blackberry alarm for 6:00PM. She lay down on top of the comforter, closed her eyes, and tried to focus on breathing Tony's scent in. Surprisingly she fell rapidly to sleep dreaming of her and Tony making love in the royal suite at Cipriani's in Venice.

She awoke at 6:00 PM to her Blackberry's alarm. All of a sudden 3 boys aged 10, 12, and 14 burst into her room.

"Aunt Pepper" they all screamed at once as they jumped up and down on the bed with her bobbing up and down like a yo-yo. They all hugged her and laughed at the stern face she made at them. "Aw, come on Aunt Pepper, you know you like it when we bounce you like Tigger!"

Pepper started laughing. "All right you guys, you got me. I need to change clothes for supper. I'll meet you at the ping pong table in 10 minutes"

"You're on" they shouted in unison and took off at a dead run for the door. She could hear their pounding footsteps receding down the stair case and heard the front door slam shut.

Pepper was suddenly very happy. Her nephews always raised her spirits.

She changed quickly placing the MIT t-shirt and sweatpants back in her suitcase.

The evening was full of energy and fun with her nephews. Her dad bar-b-qued hamburgers and her mom cooked 50 pounds of homemade French fries.

The SI guys thoroughly enjoyed the food. Charlotte made sure the guys on guard duty got fed well also. The A Team had already set up wireless cameras and security devices and created a control center in the bunkhouse. They already had shifts assigned for guard duty.

After dinner Happy played computer games with the boys. Everyone took turns playing ping pong and pool, two games that were held in high regards at the ranch. They even played poker using real potato chips as chips (keeping them clean and edible of course).

About 11:30PM the boys were sent off to bed after a round of hugs and good nights. Pepper sat with the adults minus Eddie and Happy and talked about the planned birthday party for Eddie on Saturday. Eddie and Happy were outside by the fire pit enjoying a beer together.

When they had gotten home from school, Debbie had told the boys not to mention anything to Pepper about Tony or Iron Man. Only Arliss complained. "Aww, we finally get an Uncle and a really cool one too, and we can't ask about him. How come?"

Debbie patiently explained why to Arliss. The older boys had already understood the reason. Pepper's family made sure that the TV or radios were never turned to any news channels trying their best to not upset Pepper.

About midnight the adults decided to turn in. The family had offered Happy a guest room in the sprawling 7 bedroom house and in the old ranch house, but he had declined with thanks citing the need to bunk with the security team.

Pepper walked her grandparents over to the old ranch house and to their bedroom with the Rottweilers trailing right behind them. The Rottweilers, Hansel and Gretel ran over to go to sleep in their giant dog beds on the floor. Pepper hugged Charlotte and Eddie goodnight and then made her way up the stairs to her bedroom. She took a quick hot shower to relax and then put on Tony's MIT t-shirt and sweatpants and crawled into bed. She set her Blackberry for 6:00 AM which she knew was nightfall in Afghanistan. Pepper planned on being set up with her laptop and Blackberry in hand waiting for Jarvis' phone call. Jarvis had estimated the most likely time for his call would be between 8:00 AM and 10 AM Mountain Time. She tossed and turned for a few moments trying to relax. Frustrated with her inability to relax, she got out of bed and went over to the window and stared at the night sky. Pepper then closed her eyes and silently prayed for Tony and the hostages' safety and return. After a few minutes a shooting star streaked across the sky. This was always a good omen. Pepper made her wish and then got back into bed. She closed her eyes and finally fell asleep, but woke up frequently during the night as she tossed and turned in the bed.

She awoke with her alarm at 6:00 AM and got dressed. She picked up her briefcase and Blackberry and walked over to the other house and into the dining hall. She set up her laptop at a small table in the corner of the hall right by the window. The cell signal was especially strong in this area of the house. She stuck her Blackberry in the pocket of her jeans and went into the kitchen to help with breakfast. Feeding 23 people breakfast was a group project. Anna and Charlotte were up to their elbows in biscuit dough. Debbie was frying homemade bacon, sausage, and ham in 3 huge frying pans on the stove. As from many a past breakfast creation experiences, Pepper's job was peeling potatoes and cooking hash browns and she moved to the big commercial sink to start cleaning potatoes.

By 7:00AM they were eating breakfast along with the off duty security guys and of course Happy.

"These biscuits are the best I have ever eaten!" Happy exclaimed.

"Family secret recipe" Anna said winking at Pepper. "Have another one, we baked plenty."

By the time they finished eating and cleaned up, it was 8:00 AM. Pepper took a cup of decaf green tea and sat down at the laptop. To keep her mind off clock watching, she started answering some SI emails that she knew were short fused and important. She had emailed Bambi to check status on some projects. Bambi had emailed her back letting her know that a certain Agent Coulson had been looking for her and Tony this morning, and that he had requested a meeting with the two of them next week. Bambi had let Coulson know that she would be happy to call him back later with the exact time and date of the meeting after she had contacted her boss. Pepper breathed a sign of relief now believing that SHIELD still didn't know what Tony was up to. She noticed an email from Judge Gonzales. The email simply read "Sophia and I are praying for you and Tony. They had, of course, figured out that she and Tony were not on their honeymoon. Pepper still trusted them to keep their marriage quiet at least for the time being. She began to compose a press release as SI's official response to Tony's involvement in the rescue mission. She also composed a press release for their marriage announcement trying not to tear up as she wrote it. She refused to even think about writing any other press releases.

The boys were working on homework, amid much protest on Arliss' part, and seated at the dining table with Debbie sitting on one side and Anna on the other. Charlotte was baking pecan pies and the dining hall was filling up with the wonderful smell of the pies.

Pepper breathed a heavy sigh and looked at the clock on her laptop. It was 9:50AM. She then took a deep breath to calm herself and smelled the pies baking. Tony's favorite pie was pecan because he said that it always reminded him of Christmas. A single tear fell from one of her eyes onto her keyboard. She squeezed her eyes shut and repeated her prayer from last night silently.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Night had finally fallen. Tony had already drunk his energy/nutritional drinks that he and Jarvis had created just for Tony's metabolism so he wouldn't get hungry. Tony had had some down time during the wait for darkness to think back on his wedding night. He usually didn't have time during missions to fantasize, but after a few minutes he figured out quickly that thinking about a naked Pepper gave him a raging hard on that was definitely painful in the suit. He had joked to Jarvis that he needed to add a little more room to the crotch area of his suits when he got back home. Tony closed his eyes briefly and let his mind relax sighing heavily. He wanted to clear his mind so he could focus on the battle plan. Maybe thinking about protecting Pepper and their future babies would give him the mental drive he needed right now. He pictured a heavily pregnant Pepper wearing one of his MIT t-shirts that barely covered her large belly with a pair of blue lace panties, and an overwhelming feeling of desire and possessiveness overcame him. The sudden flood of testosterone into his system made him feel very aggressive and protective. Going over the battle plan one final time with Jarvis, Tony's goals became clear: Free the Americans and get back home to Pepper.

As if right on cue, the wind speed increased dramatically on the ground. Tony made his approach downwind of the camp and moved silently towards the generator. He pulled open the control panel hatch and attached his power interrupter device where it couldn't be detected. He had programmed this device to both turn off and turn on the generator via wireless signal. Iron Man's transmission power was more than sufficient to penetrate the rock between the generator and ¼ mile of solid rock. He moved away from the generator and hid himself between some boulders where he could watch and hear conversations around the generator. Tony remotely killed the generator. A flurry of terrorists moved to surround the generator. Tony's translator relayed that the terrorists had theorized that the wind storm must be causing the generator to malfunction. Tony remotely restarted the generator. One of the terrorists who was in contact with the terrorists underground in the cave said that they should expect more power outages tonight because of the wind. This was exactly what Tony wanted them to think.

After about 30 minutes the terrorists started to settle into their tents to sleep. Tony already knew where the guards were going to be stationed. Tony and Jarvis had preprogrammed the Nemesis for transmission kill strength to extend out to the guard locations. Another 30 minutes passed and the wind speeds increased another 10 MPH. It was time to deploy Nemesis. He and Jarvis had tested the weapon and had reinforced the shield on his suit to protect him even if Nemesis was deployed at full power. Tony intended to deploy it at full power tonight. He didn't want to take chances with one of the terrorists alerting another group and them sending in reinforcements to battle Tony. Tony was going to have his hands full as it was.

Tony remotely killed the generator once more and waited a few minutes. No one bothered to even look at the generator again. Tony moved quietly to position himself at the calculated ground zero mark, pulled the Nemesis from where it had be affixed to his suit and powered the weapon on. A sound similar to a very large sub-woofer speaker being turned on was more felt that heard. Then suddenly the fillings in Tony's teeth started to vibrate. The shielding on his suit was holding. After 10 minutes Tony powered down the Nemesis and re-attached the weapon to his suit. He started making the rounds to check status on the terrorists. His night vision and medical sensors made it very clear to him that the Nemesis had performed flawlessly given the high body count. He thought back to a conversation he had with an Army General years ago regarding the viability of an EMP bomb. The General had scoffed at the notion of such a device. 'Tell that to these dead terrorists.' Tony thought.

He quietly made his way to the mouth of the cave parting the sheets of black plastic that obscured and protected the opening from the weather. He started following the power cable leads from the generator. About 20 steps into the cave he encountered the first terrorist. Tony wanted to stay a quiet as possible and not use his weaponry if possible, so he grabbed the guard and snapped his neck laying his body quietly against the wall of the cave. Tony continued to move along the wall of the cave following the power cable.

He suddenly heard voices and spotting a group of 8 guards all huddled around a table. 'This must be the guard station' he thought as he also spotted tables and chairs and various monitors and computers all with darkened screens. All of the guards were complaining about the power generator and the people who maintained the generator when Tony approached the group. His targeting systems fixed sights on each of them and within less than a second each of the guards lay silently dead on the floor of the cave.

Tony remotely started the generator again and rebooted the cameras. He saw several cameras being used to monitor the captives. He counted heads quickly. Yes, all of the 20 captives were there in one spot, and although they looked pretty scared, they didn't appear to be seriously injured. Tony let out a breath that he didn't realize he was holding. He reached into a compartment on the suit and pulled out a clamp on transmitter. He inserted the pin on the clamp into the copper coax strand within the cable sheath going to the American's camera. He turned on the transmitter. All he had to do was follow this cable. He had also been monitoring Jones' transmitter and his sensors indicated that Tony was getting closer to its source now.

Tony remotely killed the generator again. As he continued to follow the coax cable in the dark, he would come upon guards in groups of 2 to 4 standing around talking trying to see into the darkness. Tony silently dispatched all of them. His body count in the cave was up to 42 by the time he reached a door made of bars of steel. Tony smiled to himself when he saw the Americans sitting at the back of their detention area with their backs to the wall. They were all on high alert but quiet, carefully scanning the darkness in front of them.

Tony remotely turned on the generator again. Several seconds passed as the generator came up to speed and power was restored. He stood in front of the iron bar cell door and watched as the Americans rubbed at their eyes trying to focus in the light again and started to move away from the back wall of their prison room.

Tony quietly activated his transmitter to send the coded signal to Jarvis to activate the second phase of their rescue plan. "Mr. Jones and Mr. Watkins, I presume." Tony spoke loudly as the Americans snapped their heads up to look at the cell door.

"Tony Stark!" Jones bellowed. "I was wondering just how long it was going to take you to find us and get us the hell out of here!"

"Thanks for coming for us, Boss." Watkins replied following Jones up to the cell door. The Marines ran up to the cell door behind them with huge smiles on their faces.

"Pepper's the boss, not me." Tony reminded them. "Now move back so I can get this door open without hurting you."

Tony grabbed the door and with one quick yank pulled the door off of its hinges and laid it down on the floor next to the cave wall." Grab your suitcases and souvenirs boys" Tony started, motioning for them to get up and follow him, "its time to check out of the Al Qaida Hospitality Inn."

The Marines spread out in a trained formation as Tony led the way out of the cave. "Everyone needs to grab a weapon from a guard as we pass by them."

As they walked by the first group of dead guards, four Marines eagerly each picked up a rifle. They handed the two pistols that they also found over to two more Marines. The armed Marines then positioned themselves along the sides of the group as they walked so as to protect the group.

A few minutes later they came upon another group of dead guards. More weapons and more armed Marines. They were slowly and cautiously making their way back to the outside world.

The cave was eerily quiet. The only sound was their own footsteps. Watkins and Jones exchanged looks as they walked passed more dead guards. The body count was rising rapidly as they walked towards the cave entrance. The same thought passed through their heads at the same time. 'Don't ever piss Tony Stark off!'


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

By 11:15 Pepper had started to pace up and down the floor next to her table. Tony's signal was overdue and Pepper was starting to panic. Hansel and Gretel woke up from their nap under Pepper's desk to watch her walk back and forth.

The house was quiet. Pepper's silent tension had infected her whole family. They were all worried. But they tried their best to stay busy, so Pepper wouldn't notice. Charlotte and Anna were preparing sandwiches for lunch. The boys were reading while Debbie stood over them to make sure they stayed on task. The Dachshunds were lined up watching Charlotte and Anna work each waiting for their turn for a tasty treat to be thrown their way. Eddie and Ronald were marinating briskets for Eddie's birthday bar-b-que on Saturday.

"Are you OK, Pepper?" Debbie quietly asked as the boys looked up from their books.

Pepper shook her head sadly. "Tony's signal is way overdue now". She knew that Debbie had no idea what she was talking about.

Debbie walked over to Pepper and put her arm around her. The boys got up and went to stand by their Aunt also.

"Don't worry Aunt Pepper" Arliss said taking Pepper's hand in his "Iron Man would never let you down."

Pepper smiled sadly at Arliss. "You're right Arliss, not if he could help it."

Suddenly, Pepper's Blackberry vibrated. Pepper grabbed the device and put it up to her ear quickly recognizing the caller. "Jarvis?" she answered quietly.

"Mrs. Stark" Jarvis began "I am pleased to report that I have detected Mr. Stark's coded signal. We must begin executing Phase 2 of the rescue at once."

"Thank you Jarvis" Pepper said a few tears falling from her eyes "I will start making calls."

Debbie pulled the boys back away from Pepper to sit back down again at the table and she sat down beside them. Charlotte and Anna moved to sit at the table alongside the boys and Debbie. Eddie and Ronald stopped what they were doing and also came and sat down.

Pepper stood up straight and cleared her throat as she dialed a number from her contacts list. "Rhody?" she began "I know it's the middle of the night there." She listened for a few seconds and then answered. "I need you to get up now and get on board with General Duncan's Marines who will be leaving to pick up Tony and the captive Marines and SI folks. Tony needs help getting them out and back to base." She intently listened again and rolled her eyes at the phone. "No, this is not a dream. I will be calling General Duncan personally as soon as I get off the phone with you to wake his sorry ass up too." She turned around and stared out the window with a smile on her face. "Are you ready for his coordinates?" She gave him the cave's location coordinates after waiting a few seconds. "I would hurry up over to General Duncan's office, because I am about to piss him off so badly, the choppers may leave without you on board." Pepper smiled. "Bye Rhody, love you too."

Pepper hung up on Rhody and immediately dialed a second number turning to face her family to smile a reassuring smile at them. "General Duncan, this is Pepper Potts of Stark Industries." Pepper pulled the phone away from her ear as a string of obscenities floated out of the earpiece of her cell phone. "Nice to hear your voice again too, General. I am calling to see if you are interested in getting some credit for the rescue of your Marines and two of my employees that are being held prisoner by the bad guys. Perhaps you have heard about this kidnapping." Pepper held the phone even further away from her ear. "I glad to hear you are up on your current events, General. Now, do you want in on this rescue or not? Because the next call I will be making is to my President and YOUR Commander-In-Chief. And last time I checked he owes me at least two personal favors." The voice on the other end suddenly became much quieter. "I am glad we are working together too, General." Pepper rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "Yes, you will need to send at least two medical teams. I don't have confirmation on what type of injuries the hostages have sustained, but it never hurts to be prepared." Pepper glared at the cell phone "Oh I forgot that being prepared is the motto of the Boy Scouts and not the US Marine Corps. So you now have 10 choppers ready to leave immediately? You do have Colonel Rhodes on board one of them, right?" She nodded her head and raised her fist into the air in a victory salute as she rattled off the coordinates to the now quiet and intently listening General.

"They're not out of the woods yet. But Rhody being there with them will give Tony some back up." Pepper said to her family after hanging up on General Duncan. "Tony's signal indicates that he has freed the Americans and he is moving them from where they were being held deep underground back up to the surface to the mouth of the cave. There are still lots of things that can go wrong, but now that the cavalry is on the way to pick them up, their chances for making it back home safely have gone up tremendously."

"Who's Rhody? Travis asked.

"Rhody's real name is James Rhodes. He is a Colonel in the US Air Force and is Tony's best friend. He is currently stationed in Afghanistan as Air Force adviser for General Duncan. Tony and Rhody were in college together. Rhody will take care of Tony."

"Wow, Aunt Pepper" Arliss started "do you really know President Obama?

"Yes I do" Pepper answered "Tony and I support the charity Healthy Child Healthy World which both the President and his wife, Michelle support. My company is a corporate sponsor of this charity. I have helped secure other corporations' donations to this charity for which the President and the First Lady are grateful."

"What's President Obama like?" Arliss questioned further.

"The times I have interacted with him he was very serious but very polite. However, Michelle is loud and a lot of fun to be around. Their daughters are both adorable and are big fans of Iron Man, so Tony and I get invited to a lot of White House family functions. We have only been able to go to one of them, though. It was the Easter Egg Roll at the White House. It was a lot of fun. Tony actually brought Iron Man Easter Eggs for the Roll. Tony was absolutely wonderful with all of the kids there. He's really just a big kid at heart."

"Uncle Tony sounds like a fun guy." Little Eddie commented.

Pepper moved over to Little Eddie and hugged him, her eyes tearing up. "Yes, he is a lot of fun. He is a very spontaneous guy which sometimes gets him into a lot of trouble. Sound like anyone we know?" she said reaching over and gently tickling Arliss in the ribs.

"Owwee, Aunt Pepper" Arliss squealed "Don't be that way to me, after all I am your favorite nephew." With that Pepper started tickling him in earnest.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

It took 30 minutes to move the Americans back up to the cave's entrance. Tony kept the group a safe distance away from the cave entrance, making sure that the Marines were battle ready, and remotely killed the generator again. As the generator died and left only darkness and the howl of the wind, Tony pulled back the black plastic covering the entrance and looked outside the cave. The only movement he saw was the tents fluttering wildly in the wind. There was no sign of human life. Suddenly, he could hear the sound of choppers in the distance and he smiled.

He walked back to the Americans and he remotely started the generator again "Looks like your boss got the cavalry on its way to get us." He said looking at Jones.

"I am going to send Ms. Potts the biggest bouquet of red roses I can find when we get back." Jones said excitedly motioning with his arms in a sweeping fashion.

"Perhaps you better check with her husband first." Tony said opening his face shield for the first time since the mission began. "I hear that he is the jealous type." He smiled at Jones and Watkins.

"Wow" Watkins started "I didn't know that she had gotten married. I wonder who.. umph" Jones silenced Watkins with a jab to the ribs.

"Sorry, Tony" Jones started "we didn't know that she had gotten married."

"Hey" Tony went on "it's OK." Then he grinned at them. "I'm the jealous husband!"

Jones and Watkins shouted in unison "Congratulations!" as they took turns shaking his hand.

"When did this happen?" Watkins asked "It certainly didn't make any of the gossip shows!"

"Right before I left to come here." Tony replied quietly.

All of the Americans were quiet. Each one of them knew the significance of the timing of their marriage.

"This mission didn't have a very high probability of success attached to it, that's for sure." Tony admitted.

The leader of the Marines, a big blond headed sergeant, walked up to Tony and put out his hand. "Thanks for coming after us, sir, and congratulations on your marriage."

Tony shook the Marine's hand and looked at the other Marines. "Which one of you has a son named Jared?"

"That would be me sir. Private Donavan sir." The Marine spoke as he walked up to Tony and shook his hand.

"Your son was on CNN after you were captured. He was crying, his mom was crying, too. The goddamn press wouldn't leave them alone and kept shoving a microphone in the poor kid's face." Tony started, his eyes tearing up slightly "Jared asked if someone could help his daddy and I knew that I was the only person who could help him. Give Jared a hug for me when you see him, Donavan." Tony cleared his throat and wanted to change the subject. "I think the choppers may have gotten here. Let me take a look outside again."

Tony slid his shield down over his face again, moved back to the cave entrance, and looked outside. The entire area was now bathed in chopper light and Marines were pouring like ants from the choppers already on the ground. Tony called Rhody's cell phone.

"Hey Platypus" Tony started "I didn't know you guys delivered, and within 30 minutes, too. I guess I need to start calling you Dominos."

"Tony, where the hell are you man," Rhody yelled "All we are finding are bodies, lots and lots of bodies."

"Look up next to where the generator is at and you will see us." Tony said motioning for the Americans to move out of the cave.

Rhody looked down and yelled at the pilot to set down near the entrance to the cave when he spotted Tony.

"You crazy son-of-a-bitch" Rhody yelled running over and grabbing Tony by the shoulders. "Why didn't you tell anybody what you were doing?"

Tony hugged Rhody back. "I did tell someone."

"Yeah, and both of you are in deep shit now. I've had 10 calls already from Senator Stern wanting to know who authorized you to go on this rescue mission and who you have been conspiring with to pull this off. Pepper pissed off General Duncan so bad, that he was red-faced and pitching a major hissy fit when he got off the phone with her." Rhody explained. "You know that Pepper will be forced to testify against you at Stern's commission hearing."

"No she won't" Tony started "last time I checked, spouses could not testify against one another in any legal proceeding."

"You didn't, did you? Rhody smiled broadly.

"Oh yes we did." Tony answered.

"It's about damn time!" Rhody pulled Tony into another hug.

Just down hill of the generator, General Duncan stepped out of a chopper in full battle gear. "I want our men out of here pronto. Make sure the SI folks are well taken care of." His second in command grabbed a radio and began rattling off commands. The General looked around the terrorist camp in amazement. Bomb sniffing dogs were running back and forth in a frenzy looking for IEDs. Medics were hustling the former captive Marines and the SI men into choppers. Grunting loudly, the General walked forward towards a tent while being flanked by a group of Marines including a medic. He stopped next to four dead terrorists and looked carefully at the body. "What killed these men?" he asked the medic.

"Some sort of trauma, sir" the medic replied turning one of the terrorist's head to the side "The docs are going to need an autopsy to figure it out."

"Get body details in here immediately." General Duncan ordered "I want this entire area searched for the usual items. I want a detailed report by this afternoon." The General looked up at the cave entrance and noticed Tony and Rhodes. He slowly made his way to them.

As Tony and Rhodes stood together, General Duncan walked up the hill to greet them.

"Well, Mr. Stark, I never thought I would be saying this to you but" the General started "thank you for getting my boys back. We would have never found them in this hell hole." The General held out his hand.

As Tony turned to shake his hand, his face shield snapped down into place and his HUD displayed an activated IED just 10 feet behind the General. Tony pushed the General and Rhody to the ground and threw himself on top of the IED as it exploded. The Iron Man suit defected most of the blast away from the Marines and Rhody, but the Iron Man suit absorbed the remainder of the blast sending Tony flying up into the air about 50 feet to land next to a huge boulder.

Immediately a team of medics rushed up to Tony with Rhody close behind.

Tony lay still as they approached and then slowly began to move. "Damn that hurt." He said opening up the face shield. His suit was singed even blacker than it was before. The medics checked him thoroughly for a concussion and other signs of obvious injury complaining about not being able to remove the suit.

"Mr. Stark" one of the Marine doctors said shaking Tony's hand "that suit and that head of yours are mighty hard. No concussion. Looks like you will have lots of bruises, and I suspect you have fractured your right ankle given the loss of range of motion and your pain, but without an x-ray I can't be sure. And I sure as hell can't get an x-ray with that suit of yours on."

Tony shook his head and tried to stand up. The General called a few Marines over to help get Tony to his feet.

"Damn this is getting embarrassing Stark." The General said actually smiling "I need to thank you again, this time for saving my life."

"Just doing my job, General." Tony replied smiling back at him. "Maybe you will cut Pepper and me some slack at the next congressional hearing."

The General made a sour face. "You know I can't do that Stark. I have a reputation to uphold. I may cut Ms. Potts some slack however, since she did graciously offer me the chance to be involved in this rescue." Duncan rolled his eyes toward the sky and shook his head "She was the one that goaded me into sending the choppers out in the middle of the night. I still can't figure out how she got my personal telephone number. That woman is really persistent in getting what she wants."

"Actually her name now is Pepper Stark." Tony said "And you're correct, she really is VERY persistent in getting what she wants. Just be glad she isn't your Commander-In-Chief, General, at least not yet!"

"Pepper Stark, huh?" The General looked suspiciously at Tony. "I supposed it wouldn't tarnish my reputation too much if I offered my congratulations to you then."

General Duncan stuck out his hand and Tony reached across to shake it.

Rhody smiled and nodded at Tony. "General Duncan, I was wondering if you would mind releasing me to return home on leave. I believe I might have a post wedding party to go to."

"I will contact your supervising officer and make that happen, Colonel." The General replied. "And Stark, please pass on my congratulations on to your new bride when you return home."

"I will do that General." Tony answered "So you're hopping the next flight out Rhody?

"I sure am. I will let you know when to expect me once I get my travel orders." Rhody began "You better have cold beer and bar-b-que waiting on me when I get there, man. Give Pepper a kiss for me when you see her!"

"Keep the skies clear for me!" Tony said as face shield slid into place. He stiffly moved further away from them to put them out of the blast zone, then turned as he saluted them both. Looking up at the sky, he blasted off into the night.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

It had been an hour and a half since she had hung up the phone with General Duncan. Lunch had come and gone leaving Pepper still picking at the huge sandwich that Charlotte had made her for lunch. She just wasn't hungry. Her family was in the living room watching the movie Megamind, the volume turned down low. Pepper knew that her family was also waiting to hear her phone ring with news on Tony. Pepper was sitting alone in the dining hall in front of her laptop. Her finger was poised over the send button in her email program. She had written the email to PR and had attached her two press releases for PR's approval when her Blackberry played a very familiar ring tone.

As Black Sabbath's Iron Man blared into the dining hall, Pepper's family came running in to stand next to Pepper. Happy followed closely behind them.

"Tony?" Pepper asked as she answered the call as she stood up to face her family.

"Hey there gorgeous!" Tony's voice echoed, straining over the background wind noise. "I just took off a few minutes ago and I am headed home to you. Everything went well. I got everybody out, and other than a few bumps and bruises they are all OK." Tony paused wanting to her Pepper's voice again. He had missed her so much.

"That's such good news, Tony! I will call Jones' and Watkins' families after we finish talking." Pepper said loudly into her Blackberry so Tony could hear her. "Are you OK?"

"I got banged up a little. No profuse bleeding or anything like that. No concussion. But I probably did break my right ankle again." Tony leveled with her knowing she was going to find out anyway. He wasn't going to tell her about the IED until he could tell her in person.

"Oh, Tony." Pepper shook her head sadly. "Did you let the Marine medics check you over before you took off?"

"Yes I did." He replied. "You can call General Duncan if you don't believe me." He paused briefly searching for the words he wanted to say to convey his emotions. "I've missed you so much. I can't wait to hold you in my arms again."

"Oh Tony, I've missed you too. We have all been worried out of our minds about you. I can't wait to see you again either. We are all so proud of you." She paused a moment fighting back her tears. "What's your ETA to Flagstaff? Pepper asked glancing at her watch.

"I'm sorry that you and your family were worried about me." Tony said his eyes getting a little misty. "Since we are no longer in stealth mode, Jarvis has bumped the air speed up. So my estimated travel time to FLG is 10 hours 20 minutes. That will put me landing about 11:30 PM your time." He suddenly realized that both of them would be in bed making love in less than 12 hours. "I plan on taking a nap after we hang up so I will be all rested up when I see you again. You do know, Mrs. Stark, that I plan to ravish you all night long tonight, don't you?"

Pepper turned red with embarrassment. "Ohhkaay" she said slowly trying to regain control of her emotions. "My family, who is standing here with me right now listening to every word you've said, and I will meet you at the airport at 11:30 tonight.

Tony laughed. "I didn't mean to embarrass you in front of your family."

"Yes, you did." She said smiling. "But I love you anyways."

"I love you too, Mrs. Stark." Tony answered back ending the call. He sighed heavily and closed his eyes. "Jarvis, take me home." Tony suddenly realized that "home" for him was no longer his mansion at Malibu. His "home" was where ever Pepper was. He smiled. If felt good to be going home.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Pepper hung up her phone and looked at everyone and smiled. "Looks like we are going on a field trip to the airport tonight." She said as Arliss came up to her and hugged her.

"See" Arliss started "I told you Iron Man wouldn't let you down, Aunt Pepper."

"Are we going to see him actually land in his Iron Man suit?" Travis asked excitedly.

"Only if you want to go." Pepper teased as a chorus of three 'I wanna go's' greeted her immediately. "I think Tony might even let you watch the bots take his suit off."

"You mean you have robots on board your jet? Little Eddie asked unbelievingly.

"Yes we do." Pepper replied. Tony had remodeled his jet months ago removing the bedroom but leaving the bath with shower. He had installed a robotic station for suit placement and removal. Per their plan, Jarvis was taking Tony straight to the hanger at the Flagstaff airport. She looked at her family. "I'm going to call the families of my SI employees who had been held captive and give them the good news, and then I think I am going to take a nap. I didn't sleep well last night.' She said as she picked up her sandwich and took a huge bite.

Her family went back to their movie and Pepper hurriedly finished her sandwich. She then made her good news calls to her employee's families. Jones' and Watkins' wives cried when she told them about their successful rescue. Pepper cried happy tears with them.

After her calls, she emailed out her releases to PR and sent an email to Bambi too, bringing her up to date. She received a short reply almost immediately from Bambi reading 'I knew something was going on, but I know enough not to ask. Congratulations to you both. Give Mr. Stark a hug for all of us and let him know that we are so proud of both of you.' Public Relation's reply was a little longer: 'Congratulations on your marriage and congratulations on the successful mission. We will issue the Press Releases immediately. Please give us a head's up as to your honeymoon plans, because right now you and Mr. Stark are bigger headlines than Prince William and Kate. We will need to work up some cover stories in order to give you some privacy.' Pepper shook her head imagining the press hounding them even more than normal. So much for a private honeymoon.

Pepper walked into the living room with her family. "I'm going to go take a nap. What time do you want me up so I can help with supper?"

Charlotte smiled up at her. "Child, just go sleep and don't worry about helping with dinner."

"We've got dinner under control" Debbie said. "We'll send the boys over at 6:00 to get you up."

"What about supper for Uncle Tony? Travis asked.

"Since it's going to be pretty late when he gets here" Pepper started "I know what he would like us to bring him to eat."

"What's that, Aunt Pepper?" Little Eddie asked.

"Eight Burger King double meat cheeseburgers with fries and a chocolate shake." Pepper answered with a smile.

"Wow" Arliss yelled "that's a lot of burgers! He must be really hungry!"

"Tony doesn't get to eat when he is in the suit. He only has his special energy drinks. So when he gets back from a mission he is really hungry. Actually 5 of the burgers are for Tony, and I'm sure he plans on sharing the other 3 with his new nephews."

"Then we better get more fries and 3 more chocolate shakes." Travis replied.

"Go take your nap." Ronald told her with a small smile on his face.

"Yes sir." Pepper replied smiling back at him.

Pepper walked over to the old ranch house. She smiled as she entered the quiet old house. She slowly walked upstairs to her bedroom and changed into Tony's t-shirt and sweatpants and lay down on top of the comforter. She took a deep breath and sighed contentedly. She stretched out her hand onto the bed besides her and imagined Tony laying there on his side looking at her with his dark eyes filled with love. She smiled and closed her eyes letting her memories of their wedding night replay in her head until she fell soundly asleep.

In the main house, the boys had gone outside to toss the football with Happy and some of the off duty security guys.

The rest of the family decided to catch up on the local and national news while asking each other questions about weather forecasts and football schedules as the TV was being turned to CNN. Suddenly the CNN news anchor was reporting on a story about both Pepper and Tony and everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and looked at the TV.

"Yes, it has been confirmed that Stark Industries CEO, Virginia Pepper Potts and Tony Stark have indeed tied the knot. This move was not unexpected by those who knew the couple. However, the timing of the marriage has created suspicions that the pair married in a private civil ceremony with only one witness as a cover story so that Mr. Stark could leave to rescue the Americans held captive by Al Qaida in Afghanistan undetected. We will have further updates on this later in our broadcast."

"No wonder Pepper hates the press." Eddie spat out. "They are always hounding them."

"Pepper has always said that the press hated Tony, because Tony wouldn't suck up to them." Anna replied. "She said that a lot of the stories about Tony were made up just because the press knew that Tony would fight them over the stories, making even more headlines for the press."

"No wonder Pepper didn't want anyone to know that she was here." Debbie remarked. "She's told me that sometimes the press is so bad that she can't even go shopping for groceries without being harassed."

Eddie had already changed the TV to another news station as the news anchor spoke: "It has been confirmed that all of the Americans were rescued and that they were suffering from only minor injuries. The confirmed death toll of the Al Qaida members stands at 131. The military also confirms that there were no prisoners taken during the rescue. Fifteen of the confirmed dead were on the Top 50 Most Wanted Terrorist list."

"No quarter asked, no quarter given." Eddie commented.

"So Tony killed 131 terrorists?" Anna asked almost unbelieving the number.

"This was a big operation for Al Qaida. Having that many American prisoners at one time was a big deal for them and they apparently called in reinforcements into their camp. That's why everyone said that going into their camp to rescue the Americans was a suicide mission. We need to remind the boys not to ask Tony about what happen there." Ronald said quietly.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Pepper's Blackberry chimed at exactly 6:00PM and at exactly 6:01PM Pepper's bedroom door flew open and three excited boys jumped onto her bed.

"Time to get up Aunt Pepper." Arliss yelled jumping next to her "We are having lagagya for dinner."

"It's pronounced lasagna Arliss." Travis corrected.

"No, it's not. Opa says that it's pronounced LA GAG YA." Arliss defended putting emphasis on each syllable. "Because all that cheese gives him an upset stomach."

"Opa gets an upset stomach only because he always eats three platefuls every time we have it for dinner." Little Eddie corrected.

Pepper laughed at her nephews. "Didn't Oma send you guys here to wake me up and escort me over to supper? NOT to argue about Opa being a lasagna hog?"

"You're right Aunt Pepper" Arliss squealed grabbing Pepper by the hand and pulling her off the bed. "Let's go before Opa eats all of the LA GAG YA!"

After every one had filled up on lasagna and homemade breadsticks, the boys challenged Happy to play them again on videos. Ronald and Eddie watched a special Thursday Night Edition of Monday Night Football, and the ladies decided to go outside and stargaze.

Pepper sighed deeply as she looked up at the night sky. She was wishing it was 11:30 in stead of 8:30.

Debbie watched Pepper closely. "What time should we leave to go wait for Tony?" she asked.

"I think we should leave no later than 10:00. However, Tony will usually call me when he is about an hour out to let me know the exact time to expect him to arrive. He always likes me to be there waiting for him. I haven't missed his return from a mission yet." Pepper smiled at the thought.

"So how many missions has he been on?" Anna asked.

"Twenty eight including this one." Pepper replied. "And sometimes I feel like I have aged one year per mission."

"After you have children, I bet he will cut way back on these missions." Charlotte commented.

Pepper pondered their future together. Tony wouldn't be Tony without Iron Man. "His heart won't let him. As long as there is someone in need of his help, he will keep on being Iron Man until he can't anymore. His heart is the reason that I have stayed with him all of these years. Before his parents died, Tony's dad's business partner had started exerting his influence over him when Tony was only 15. He slowly turned him into the over-sexed, boozed out, egotistical brat with his ass always showing more than his intelligence, that we all saw on YouTube and TV. His partner wanted to use Tony's brain to further his own ambitions to take over Stark Industries and did his best to keep Tony as just the figurehead of the company when Tony turned 21 by distracting him with anything a 21 year old man could want: alcohol, drugs, and sex. I showed up in Tony's life right before his 25th birthday and by then he already had the reputation of being a global playboy and an arrogant ass. When we first met, as we spoke about an accounting error that I had found, I had looked him dead in the eye while we argued over the error. It wasn't just a short look either; it was almost like a staring contest. I suddenly felt that I was looking into his soul and he was searching for mine. I think we both lost track of time at that point. He suddenly dropped the report he was holding and we both tried to grab it at the same time, hitting each other's heads in the process. We both laughed nervously, and then he looked at me seriously and suddenly asked if he could hire me to be his Personal Assistant. I agreed right there on the spot, which is so not like me at all. It only took me two weeks as his assistant to figure out what his partner was doing to him. Tony was so alone at that point in his life, and I had just figured out that the man that Tony thought of as his dad was just using him. So I resigned myself then and there to become Tony's protector and friend. After I became his assistant, Tony starting cutting back on the wild life, at least he started cutting down and the number of women he was bedding, but his reputation and his ego had grown so large that he felt obligated to continue leading the life of the jet setting billionaire. We both knew that we were more than friends at that point in our lives, but I just couldn't trust him not to break my heart, so our relationship became filled with endless flirting and a rumor mill for the press. But after Tony came back from his captivity in that cave in Afghanistan for 3 months, he had not only sobered up, but he began to realize that his prior life wasn't how he wanted to spend the rest of his life. He wanted to be remembered as something other than the Merchant of Death. Tony had become the man I had always thought he could be, the man that I saw deep within his eyes almost 11 years ago."

Pepper looked around at the women standing around her. They had tears in their eyes as she finished her story.

"That sounds almost like a fairytale." Anna replied dabbing at her eyes.

"Please don't ever tell Tony about the fairytale comment, or I will never hear the end of his Prince Charming claims, although he can be quite the charmer when he wants to be." Pepper exclaimed smiling broadly.

Suddenly, Pepper's Blackberry's went off making all the women jump at once.

"What are you wearing?" came the deep voice out of the speaker.

Pepper recovered quickly, winking at her family. "Who wants to know?" she replied in an equally low voice.

"Iron Man does." Tony replied after a few seconds. "Wait a minute, Mrs. Stark, are you telling me that other men call you up using that opening line?"

"Not any more" she teased "Haven't you heard: I'm a one man woman now, Mr. Stark."

"Funny, that's what Jarvis says that the press is saying too" He replied "And of course if the press says it, then it must be true."

"I am currently rolling up my jeans in an attempt to keep my pant legs above the level of the bullshit coming out of my Blackberry." Pepper said rolling her eyes.

"I must have hit a sensitive spot with the press." Tony laughed "Don't worry, when I get you alone tonight, I'll make you forget all about the press, Pepper. In fact I want to make you forget about everything else except me."

"Soooo," she blushed "Do you still plan on arriving around 11:30?

"That's what I was calling about." He replied "Jarvis cranked up the speed a little more, because he was tired of hearing me ask him 'Are we there yet?', and I should be touching down right around 10:30 PM your time."

"You mean you weren't actually calling to ask me what I was wearing, Mr. Stark?" Pepper teased "I'm crushed, but I love you anyway."

"You will be wearing nothing but a smile before too long, Mrs. Stark." He said "I love you too. See you in about an hour and a half."

"It's time to leave." Pepper told her family.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Pepper had called Bill and Jerry to let them know the change in time for Tony's arrival, so they could contact airport security to let them know when to expect the growing motorcade of vehicles making their way to the airport via Burger King.

Bill and Jerry and the crew had not eaten yet, so Pepper offered to get burgers for them too. Since it would be midnight before they got home and least 1:00AM before anyone got to bed, she decided to get everyone cheeseburgers. Suddenly the total number of cheeseburgers stood at 43 plus fries and drinks. The number of burgers, plus their motorcade pulling into the parking lot of the Burger King at 9:30 PM on a Thursday was going to raise some eyebrows and some suspicions. So they parked the vehicles in an adjacent parking lot and Happy and four of the SI security guys, armed with cash, went inside Burger King to get the food. Happy came through using his most innocent look with a 'guys night out story'. The BK staff was annoyed, but not suspicious.

They managed to make it into the hanger by 10:15.

Bill and Jerry and crew were waiting for them.

"Did you buy out Burger King?" Bill asked winking at Pepper as Happy and the boys carried in about 30 bags of food into the kitchen area of the hanger. "Mr. Stark still on schedule?"

"Let's hope he is on time, instead of his usual late self." Pepper replied smiling at Bill. "He has been getting better at being on time lately."

They walked out the back door of the hanger. This area was more private and not in view of the other hangers.

Pepper picked up her Blackberry. "Tin Woman to Tin Man" she started.

"Tin Man here, Tin Woman". Tony grinned "I'm about 10 nautical miles down range from you and I have locked onto your signal. I am assuming that I will have an audience for this landing, so I better make it good!"

"You will indeed have an audience, but a friendly one." Pepper replied smiling at her excited nephews.

"Be there in a few." He said ending the call.

Pepper looked up as she heard a familiar sound.

"Can you hear him?" Travis asked her.

"Yes, he's slowing down to get ready to land. I can make out the thruster noise on the suit, because I am used to hearing the sound."

"How fast can the suit go?" Little Eddie asked.

"I can't let that secret out even for family, but I can tell you that this suit can exceed Mach 3 speed."

"Holy cow!" exclaimed Ronald whistling softly.

Pepper pointed up "See those 3 moving lights coming towards us? That's Iron Man." Pepper turned to speak to the group. "I want you to meet Tony, but you can't touch him while he is in the suit. After most missions, the suit has sustained some damage, usually sharp edges on it that will cut you really badly. And there may be blood and other organic stuff on the suit as well." She winced slightly. "Once he takes the suit off and showers, then you can hug him and shake his hand." She looked back up to the sky.

"Aunt Pepper." Little Eddie asked cautiously "whose blood is it?

Pepper hugged Little Eddie, wanting to answer him honestly, but not frighten him. "Most of the time it's the bad guys' blood, but after the really bad missions, sometimes your Uncle Tony's blood is on the suit too."

Little Eddie hugged her back gently.

The lights continued to grow in size and a dull roar could now be heard growing louder. Everyone watched as the lights grew in size quickly until they were directly overhead of the group about 100 feet in the air. The lights changed position and the roar started to decrease. Finally they could make out a black figure slowly lowering itself towards an empty patch of asphalt to the group's left. About 7 feet about the ground, the thrusters shut down and the figure landed on the asphalt with a thud.

As the dark figure raised itself up to full height, Pepper walked towards it. The face plate slid up as Pepper walked within 10 feet of it, revealing an unshaven, smiling Tony.

"Hey gorgeous." Tony whispered as Pepper got closer. "I'm so glad to be home."

Pepper knew better then to hug him without first looking at the suit. "Tony, I'm so glad you're home too. I missed you." She could see immediately that the suit had sustained quite a bit of damage and there were ragged edges sticking out. Singe marks were evident all over the suit. Some of the black paint even looked to be missing in places. "Let's get you inside the hanger and out of the open." She turned to her family. "OK, let's get everyone inside the hanger now."

They all moved inside with Tony and Pepper bringing up the rear. One of the SI security men locked the hanger door behind them.

"OK everyone, this is Tony" Pepper started putting her hand carefully on Tony's shoulder as everyone turned towards them. "Boys, the suit has some jagged places on it that will cut you, so remember: look but don't touch."

The three boys ran towards Tony and Pepper and literally screeched to a halt on the concrete floor in front of him.

"One at a time, oldest to youngest." Pepper reminded them smiling when Arliss huffed indignantly.

Little Eddie stepped forward "Pleased to meet you Uncle Tony, my named is Edward, but I go by Little Eddie."

Immediately, Travis stepped forward almost shyly. "I'm Travis, Uncle Tony."

Then Arliss jumped forward nearly bumping into Tony. "Hi Uncle Tony, I'm Arliss. Your suit is AWESOME! Can we please watch the robots take your suit off?"

"Hi guys, I'm pleased to me you. Your Aunt Pepper has told me a lot about you." Tony said looking at Arliss with amusement. "Of course you guys can watch the bots take off my suit."

"Oh no!" Arliss said under his breath. "I hope Aunt Pepper only told you the good stuff about me, Uncle Tony."

"Arliss!" Debbie yelled.

Everyone except Arliss laughed.

"Tony needs to get out of the suit, so if you want to watch come let's get on the jet." Pepper said pulling on Tony.

"Wait a minute!" Arliss yelled following right behind Tony "Uncle Tony, you're not naked underneath that suit are you, because I really don't want my mom, grand mom, and great grand mom seeing you if you are?"

Debbie hung her head in shame, as everyone laughed again.

"No Arliss, I'm not naked underneath the suit, but I haven't had a shower in a few days, so I definitely smell bad." Tony confessed walking towards the jet with Arliss still right on his heels.

"No problem, Uncle Tony." Arliss said quietly trying to not let Debbie hear him "Sometimes I go a week without a shower myself."

"What did you say Arliss? Debbie asked angrily.

"That we all stink once in a while, Mom." Arliss proudly announced.

Everyone including Arliss laughed.

Pepper's family had gotten on board and crowded into the platform area. Pepper motioned them back about 7 feet from the raised platform in the center of the room. Pepper joined them holding onto Arliss' shoulders so he couldn't move. Tony smiled at her and turned to walk over to the glass panel next to the platform. He moved his hands across the glass suddenly lighting the glass up like a computer display screen.

"Stark 1" Tony said "Execute Removal Sequence 7.002."

Tony stepped onto the platform. Suddenly the floor opened up around the platform exposing 4 robots. The robots began remove Tony's armor quickly.

The last items to be removed were the boots. Tony winced as he flexed his bootless right foot. He looked up to see if Pepper had noticed: she had of course and was squinting at him in the way that would mean trouble for him later. The robots disappeared into the deck as fast as they appeared taking the pieces of the suit with them. Tony was left on the platform in his black neoprene suit. Pepper immediately moved to his side as he stepped down from the platform.

"Are you OK, Uncle Tony?" Travis asked.

"I'm fine, I just need to get out of this suit and take a quick shower." Tony winced with each footstep towards the shower room trying his best not to limp. Pepper was supporting him around the waist.

"Why don't you go out into the hanger and join Bill and Jerry and get those cheeseburgers out so we can eat in a few minutes. I think they have a movie about the Blue Angels that you can watch together in the Ready Room before we eat." Pepper said. Charlotte and Anna immediately started pushing people out of the room closing the door behind them.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

"Pepper, I'm going to need a few minutes to…you know." Tony shyly said as he limped into the bathroom.

Pepper smiled knowingly at Tony, since he had not been out of the suit for several days. The suit took care of the urination, but not BMs. Tony always joked that he was working on that upgrade but was 'behind' on his work.

Pepper entered the bathroom upon hearing the toilet flush. She opened up the shower room door as she helped Tony sit down on the bench inside the shower. She pulled open the bag she had brought on board with her. "I have a set of clothes for you to change in to." as she grabbed body wash and shampoo out to set besides Tony.

Tony watched her place the bag back outside the shower room. "Are you going to join me, Mrs. Stark?"

She started pulling the zipper down along his neck and across his chest. "Yes, I am, but only for a shower this time."

Tony pouted and gave her his best kicked puppy look, but Pepper just smiled at him as she pulled down the zippers on either side of his legs.

"I want to see how badly you are hurt, Mr. Stark." She said softly pulling the suit off his chest. "Stand up so I can get your pants off." She could already see the suit starting to tent up in the crotch area. "Well, I can see that Little Tony is uninjured."

She pulled the rest of the suit off of him and sat him back down on the bench. She undressed quickly noting how interested Little Tony was getting in her current state of undress. She also looked at his bruised and swollen right foot. Tony's eyes followed hers thinking of a way to get her mind off worrying about his injuries.

"You know that I reinforced and insulated this part of the jet for security, but it also means that this bathroom is literally soundproof." he said reaching up and pulling her down towards him as she turned the shower on.

Her resolve for a PG Rated shower was washing away down the drain with the shower water. Touching his body had her so aroused already. She leaned down and kissed him softly, pulling away after a few seconds as Tony moaned in protest. "Let me look at you." She used her hands to softly caress his body all over. "So far, just the usual bruises." She stopped when she got to his right ankle. "Debbie works for an orthopedic surgeon. I'm going to ask her to call him tonight and see if he can see you."

"Not tonight, Pepper" Tony pleaded pulling on her arms and pulling her into his lap.

"OK Tony, not tonight." She wanted him so badly that she gave in to his request. She shifted over slightly and lowered herself slowly onto his rigid manhood, kissing him passionately as she did. "I've missed you so much…I love you!"

"Oh god, Pepper." Tony replied closing his eyes, and putting his hands on her hips, pulling her down. "I missed you too, want you so much." He kissed her back sucking on her lower lip.

Pepper finally found her footing and rode him hard, grinding into him, and squeezing his rigid manhood. This was going to end quickly. They had all night in the ranch house to draw out their lovemaking.

Pepper felt herself losing control as the beginnings of her orgasm started to take over her coherent thoughts. Tony grunted loudly pulling her down hard on his manhood with each bottom stroke. Finally Pepper felt her dam break, and she kissed him deeply trying to muffle her cries as she came long and hard. Tony pulled her down a final time thrusting up into her as she kissed him again. He felt himself spill into her as he continued to thrust up into her over and over again until he was spent. They held each other tightly as the water continued to pour over them.

Pepper leaned back, looking at him, and then moved quickly back and planted a soft kiss on his nose causing Tony's eyes to cross. Pepper laughed softly. She grabbed the body wash and started washing Tony starting with his chest. Tony slumped into her, moaning at her touch.

"I think you are going to enjoy getting to know my family." She said continuing raising each arm and dramatically scrubbing his armpits.

"If they are anything like Arliss, I think I'm going to be in trouble keeping my mouth shut." Tony laughed "He is a force to be reckoned with."

"I hate to tell you this, but Arliss gets his personality from my grandfather Eddie. My grand dad is the real force to be reckoned with." Pepper laughed, making Tony stand up so she could wash his backside. She gently pushed him back down on the seat and then washed down each leg being careful around his right ankle.

Tony placed his hands on Pepper's stomach moving his hands lower into her reddish blond curls. "You are in need of a little body washing too, Mrs. Stark.

Pepper poured some body wash into his outstretched hand and shivered as he washed her, running his fingers slowly up and down. She shook her head to clear her thoughts, and got the shampoo out. "No more nookie, Mr. Stark until we get into a bed, OK."

"OK, my Pepperpot." He replied leaning over to kiss her damp curls as she struggled to focus while she shampooed his hair.

"Tony, sit up will you." Pepper scolded pretending to be mad. She knew that a few more touches from him would send her back over the edge, and she really wanted him in bed the next time. She needed a distraction. "The boys went to Burger King and got you cheeseburgers, and they are waiting to eat with you." Pepper pulled the shower nozzle out of its cradle and began rinsing them both off.

"Wow!" Tony replied. "Fries and a Chocolate Shake too?" Pepper nodded. "Somebody must have tipped them off as to my favorite post mission meal."

"Oh yeah." She replied turning the water off and grabbing a towel. "Their Aunt Pepper did."

"Let's not disappoint them." Tony stood up and helped dry himself off, he also dried Pepper off. Pepper quickly put on her clothes as Tony looked longingly at her. She helped him put on a pair of boxers.

Pepper brushed his hair and then hers. She plugged in his razor and made his sit on the counter next to the mirror. He looked up at her and raised one eyebrow in question. "So you don't have to shave when we get to the ranch." She explained starting to shave him. "That way we can get right to the lovemaking part."

"Good planning Mrs. CEO." He said trying his best not to move.

She stood between his legs. He gently moved his thighs together and hugged her hips with his legs. His hands roamed up and down her ribcage from her hips to her breasts with light pressure, not enough to tickle her, but enough to arouse her. She set her jaw and shaved his cheeks first, trimming his sideburns. With her free hand she smoothed out his sideburns. Then she planted a soft kiss on each cheek. She adjusted the shaver and began to shave his goatee. As her fingers came near his mouth, he reached out with his lips and kissed them. Then he pulled her free hand down to the hardening ridge in the crotch area of his boxers.

"You sure we don't have time for Round 2, Mrs. Stark?" he whispered. She had only shaved him a few times in the years that they had known each other. This was the first time that she had shaved him when he wasn't either on the verge of being passed out or so numb with a hangover that he barely knew what she was doing. He suddenly realized that being shaved by Pepper was a huge turn on for him. He captured her eyes with a dark, lustful stare.

She was tempted yet again, but pulled her hand away from his boxers, and reached up to grab his chin as she finished trimming his goatee. "Round 2 will be 'back at the Ranch', Mr. Stark"

After she finished shaving him, she made him brush his teeth. She then helped him put on his jeans, barely getting the wide leg over his swollen ankle. He put socks on but only one shoe. He pulled on a thick t-shirt so the arc reactor wouldn't show.

Pepper always made sure that the jet was well stocked with first aid supplies. While Tony was still sitting on the counter, she pulled off his right sock, and wrapped his ankle using a large Ace Bandage from the supply cabinet. She put his sock back on his foot and got up to give him a pair of crutches already adjusted for him. She handed the crutches to Tony. "Remember how to use these?"

He smiled at her. "Like riding a bike, Pepper." He proceeded to walk out of the room. Pepper quickly picked up their belongings, including the neoprene suit.

Amazingly enough, only 20 minutes had passed since they had gone in to take a shower. When they left the jet and walked towards the hanger office they found that the flight crew and Pepper's family and Happy were all packed into the ready room intently watching an aviation video about the Blue Angels.

Tony nudged Pepper as they stood in the doorway and whispered in her ear "I told you we could have had Round 2 and no one would have missed us at all."

Pepper smiled and hugged him and they stood and watched the video. The video was a short one and was soon over.

Jerry looked over to see them standing in the doorway and smiled. "You clean up pretty good Mr. Stark."

"Mrs. Stark takes good care of me." Tony replied hugging her closer to him.

The boys came running up to Tony each one hugging him in turn. Happy came up next to Tony and pulled him into a bear hug as Tony hugged him back.

Charlotte, Anna, and Debbie then surrounded Tony and Pepper. Pepper introduced them to Tony one at a time. Tony hugged each of them in turn.

After hugging Tony, Charlotte smacked him soundly on the top of the head surprising Tony: "That's for making us all worry so much." She then quickly smiled at him and kissed him on the cheek "But we forgive you…this time!"

Tony smiled back at her, and then turned to Pepper who had reached over and was rubbing his head where Charlotte had hit him. "Yes" she explained "I do come by my personality honestly."

Ronald approached Tony and extended his hand. "I'm Ronald, Pepper's dad." He said simply, shaking hands with Tony, then smiled at him. Tony smiled back. Ronald was genuinely surprised at Tony's grip noting that his hands were rough and calloused, much like his own.

Then Eddie moved to shake Tony's hand. "I'm Eddie, but you can call me Opa."

Tony shook hands with him and smiled. "I hear you are a pretty good mechanic on gas engines. Pepper of course being the best diesel mechanic is three counties. You and me need to talk."

"About that flathead of yours?" Tony questioned.

"You bettcha." Eddie replied winking at him.

They made their way into the kitchen. The boys pulled out a chair for Tony to sit down and then Arliss and Travis each sat down next to him. Little Eddie sat directly across from him.

True to form, Tony wolfed down 5 double cheeseburgers, large fries, and was in the process of finishing off his chocolate shake as the boys were just finishing their cheeseburgers.

"Wow, Uncle Tony." Arliss spoke up with three fries sticking out of his mouth at odd angles. "Looks like you were hungry all right."

Tony smiled. "Yes, I was." These were the first words he had uttered since sitting down to eat.

After taking her family on a tour of the jet with Bill and Jerry as tour guides, the group packed up to leave for the ranch.

Privately, Tony thanked Bill and Jerry for taking care of Pepper on the way out.

"No problem, boss" Bill said shaking Tony's hand "just doing our job. Just let us know where to from here and when, and we will get you there." Bill was hinting about their honeymoon.

"Just hang tight and give us a couple of days to sort everything out." Tony replied.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

The drive back to the ranch was quiet. The boys fell asleep almost immediately. Tony sat next to Pepper in one of the Escalades with the boys.

"I can see us with our own kids doing this." Pepper said as she gently pushed Arliss' hair back away from his closed eyes.

"I can too." Tony replied hugging her and kissing her on the cheek. "When we get to the ranch we can work on making some of these." He nodded towards the now snoring Arliss.

When they arrived at the ranch, Debbie had no problems putting the boys to bed. In fact everyone headed for bed quickly since it was after 1 AM. They all had to be up at 6:00AM to start preparing food for Eddie's birthday party.

Tony held on to the handrail of the staircase leading up to their bedroom, putting the crutches in the other hand. He suddenly felt a pair of hands on his backside. "Are you feeling me up or helping me up Mrs. Stark?" he whispered.

"May be a little of both, Mr. Stark." Pepper replied quietly as she grabbed the back pockets of Tony's jeans, pushing him up the stairs. At the top of the staircase, she wrapped her arm around his waist as he leaned on her for support. She led him down the hall to their bedroom and then closed the bedroom door behind him and locked the door. He looked at her a little curiously. "My nephews like to wake me up by bouncing on the bed."

"Well, Mrs. Stark, I think I'm going to be bouncing you a little my self tonight."He teased throwing his crutches down, lying down on the bed spread eagle and closing his eyes. "It sure feels good just to stretch out a little after being in that suit for so long."

Pepper lay down next to him on her side, molding herself to his body and rubbing his stomach gently. She closed her eyes and sighed heavily. "It does feel good to stretch out. Why don't you turn over and I'll give you a back rub."

"With or without my clothes?" he asked teasingly cracking open one eye to glance sideways at her.

As she slowly started to pull his t-shirt up over his abs, she replied "Do you really need to ask that question, Mr. Stark?"

He grinned at her "No, I guess I don't." He then moaned as she gently massaged his stomach. "You know I had an epiphany of sorts today as I was flying back to you."

Pepper hummed as she moved to plant small kisses on his stomach moving up to his chest. "What about?"

"Out of habit, I had asked Jarvis to 'take me home' when I left Afghanistan today just before I took a nap. Suddenly it dawned on me that my home was no longer our mansion in Malibu." He said as she gently stroked his stomach and chest in between kisses. "My home was wherever you were, Pepper." He then kissed the top of her head pulling her close to him. "And it felt really good to be going home."

Pepper smiled at him as she leaned up and kissed him passionately on the lips, entwining their tongues, until they both struggled for air and parted, their foreheads still touching.

"Welcome home, Mr. Stark." She whispered as she leaned in to kiss him again. "Welcome, home."


End file.
